


Heaven Queen

by mer_maider



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Attempted Sex, Child Abuse, Emperor Lotor, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fix-It, Lotura - Freeform, No such thing as season 7 or 8, One-sided lularry, Relationship Issues, Romance, Sexual Tension, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-17
Updated: 2019-06-19
Packaged: 2019-06-28 13:35:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 49,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15708291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mer_maider/pseuds/mer_maider
Summary: Now that Lotor is rescued from the rift and purged of all quintessence, he and Allura have some unresolved issues between them. Issues of the emotional, romantic, and sexual kind as they work to move past the arrival of Romelle. They love each other, but after leaving the rift, somehow it's so hard to say. Sequel to A Better Place





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Obviously there's no three year time jump, no Earth invasion, and Shiro gets a new arm and ship from the Olkari. Caution to big Romelle fans. If you need a new ending to season 6 and want Lotura to resolve their issues, then this is the fic for you. Should be about 5 chapters. The rating will also change eventually. Enjoy.

“Lotor. Sound off.”

No response as Allura prepared the pod for takeoff. Panic swiped like a beast at her chest as her head whipped in his direction next to her. He sat motionless in the passenger seat, face slightly turned away from her so she couldn’t see an expression, or even a man alive. Instantly she grabbed his shoulder and jerked him a little, causing his head to roll to the side and his exhausted eyes finding hers inside his helmet. She breathed a sigh of incredible relief.

“You have to answer me,” she scolded softly, trying to keep annoyance out of her voice because of his current condition.

All Lotor did was give her hand on his shoulder a comforting pat in apology.

There was no choice but to accept it even though he still didn’t give her his call, so Allura went back to the controls, turning on the navigation and plugging in coordinates as the pod hummed to life. She detached the anchor to the Sincline, waited for it to reel back belowdecks. The monster ship would be left like a dead body floating on the surface of the sea.

She’d used a lot of energy to get Lotor to the pod after cleansing him of the dark quintessence that had desperately wanted to continue his family’s legacy and corrupt him. Not only had it taken a lot out of her to heal him, but she’d had to dress him, get him out into space and into the pod. He’d tried to do all he could to help her, but the corruption had severely injured him and the detox weakening him in a way she’d never seen before. All he could do now was lie there after fighting his way through the darkness that had momentarily taken his mind and body.

And it had all been her fault, so Allura would use her last breath to get him to safety and comfort.

All communications outside the rift were down until she left it. The pod was able to scan for the exact spot she’d entered it, and once found, she piloted the small craft out of the grey and silent hell and back into familiar space. The starry black around them now was incredibly comforting. Instantly she started programming the communications, ready to contact her team to let them all know she was safe and sound, and on her way back with Lotor.

That thought made her stop and glance over at him.

Shiro, their real Shiro, had not truly been present during their time with the Galra prince. After being debriefed of the entire situation, he’d been the one to tell her she’d needed to go retrieve Lotor. He had quickly analyzed all the information, weighed the options, considered the rest of the crew.

Had looked into her eyes, and knew she was in love and that her abandonment of Lotor was killing her inside. Leaving him had not been wise.

Shiro’s order to save Lotor had been the snap she’d needed to push her in the right direction, and instantly she’d taken the pod back to the rift and the Sincline. She’d had no time to explain to Coran or her team the reason for her decision that would ultimately be very controversial. They’d all just fought Lotor in a fearsome battle they’d barely escaped from.

And, Allura thought with dread, she’d not taken the time to speak with her fellow Altean Romelle.

Romelle, who would most certainly be opposed to Lotor’s rescuing.

There were more pressing matters, Allura decided, understanding now that one of her big mistakes had been taking a stranger’s word over Lotor’s, and she would not make it again. Saving his life now was more important than debating who was right and who was wrong.

Or who was a monster and who was a victim.

“Lotor,” she said, holding off on sending a message to her team.

“Yes, Allura, I’m here. I’m not dead yet.”

Ignoring his comment, she pulled a blanket out from a small storage compartment in front of his knees and covered him with it when she spotted the shivering that had yet to recede. “I need to contact Shiro. He’s the only one who knows about this. I need to let him know we’re on our way back… and that he needs to tell the others.”

“Shiro,” Lotor repeated softly. “The Black Paladin. I’m confused.”

“Keith was able to preserve the body. His consciousness was held within the Black Lion and I was able to successfully implant it into the clone to bring him back. He is no longer Haggar’s puppet, and he is the only one who wasn’t truly…”

It seemed any answer she gave him would be insensitive, but Lotor finished for her anyway. “He was not truly there to deal with me.”

“Yes,” she answered, frowning a little. “The others will certainly have an emotional response to my returning for you. I need to handle it delicately, and Shiro is the only one who can help me with that. I’m not going to keep you as a secret,” she said sternly when he breathed out a small laugh. She knew what he was thinking. “That benefits no one. And what I told you in the rift… I’ve given you my word, and I won’t break it.”

_I will never leave your side again._

She’d told him that, and more. Right now the words were still fresh, and he didn’t tell her his doubts that perhaps he thought they wouldn’t always be. Loving words were pretty things, and he knew that more than anyone.

But did they always keep? He would just have to find out. In that, he had no experience.

“You call the shots, darling,” he said, taking the latches of his helmet with trembling hands. “I’m afraid I’ve no strength to assist you for the time being.”

She reached for him. “That’s not safe.”

He pulled the helmet off anyway, the long pieces still left of his hair cascading down his shoulders. At this angle she could see a section at the back of his neck that appeared to have been forcefully ripped out. It speckled lightly with blood, just like the cut slashed through an eyebrow on his face. “I can’t wear it right now, Allura. I need to breathe properly. Contact your paladin,” he told her, then settled back into the seat, pulling the blanket up and over himself as he continued to shiver.

Allura sighed, then went back to the screens. Before she sent the communication to Shiro, she told the computer, “Audio only.” She didn’t want her face popping up on his wrist unit for the whole team to see. Hopefully he had his helmet nearby.

Thankfully, he instantly answered. “Allura?” She could hear the relief and slight concern in his voice.

“It’s me, Shiro, I’m safe and on my way back. Are you alone?”

“Allura,” he breathed again. So much relief, she realized. Surely he hadn’t been _that_ worried. “Where are you?”

“I’ll reach Olkarion in approximately two vargas, so I won’t be that far behind you. There’s much I need to discuss with you, if you could perhaps sneak off for a bit? The Olkari also need to be informed that—”

“Allura,” Shiro interrupted, his quick footsteps chiming in through the commlink as he found somewhere private. “It’s been days since you left.”

Allura stopped for a moment, then drew her brows together. “What? That can’t be. It couldn’t have been four vargas since I left you.”

She heard him take a big breath, and then a rustling sound that must’ve meant he was rubbing his face. “I’m sorry, I’m just… so happy to hear your voice. I was just debating whether or not to tell the team everything and take the Lions to find you. But you’re alive. You’re safe.” He stopped for a tick, then asked softly, “Did you find him?”

She almost couldn’t answer him, still reeling from an apparent time lapse. Allura shook her head to clear out the immense confusion and slight shock. “Yes. Yes, I have Lotor, he’s with me. Shiro…” she sighed.

“I can’t explain it to you, Allura. All I know is that you left for the quintessence field days ago and I haven’t heard from you since. I’m sorry, but I had no choice but to tell Coran the truth. He couldn’t function not knowing where you were, and my… very lackluster explanation that you needed time to yourself after the battle with Lotor wasn’t calming him down. He knows, and he’s been pacing ever since waiting for you to come back. So have I.”

Allura bowed her head and placed her hand over her eyes, not caring she still wore her own helmet. Would the guilt never end? First Lotor, now her entire team. And Coran. “I don’t know what to say. I didn’t know.”

“It’s not important now,” Shiro said, bringing her back like he always did. Thank the Ancients for him. “You’re on your way. We made it to Olkarion as planned. Everyone’s safe and sound, and the Olkari have generously given us shelter so the team could rest. They’re putting the finishing touches on the new ship now, so it’ll be ready for you when you arrive.”

Days, Allura thought again. She’d lost days while fighting for Lotor in the rift. Enough time that her team made it to the rendezvous point on Olkarion well before her. If she’d lost so much time in what had felt to her like just a couple of vargas…

Allura looked at Lotor. She’d left him for much longer than that, and the small amount of time she’d been in the rift had still been far too long for her liking. How long had he been suffering all alone, trapped in dark madness? No wonder it had been so difficult to save him. No wonder he was so weak now. She had sentenced him to such torture, and in return, she’d only lost a few days.

Lotor was the priority, she vowed. Nothing would stop her from getting him back to his former self.

“Allura.”

Shiro, she remembered, giving him her attention again. “I’m here.”

“No one’s around. Can you activate video? I’d like to see you.”

She mechanically nodded, then realized he had no way of knowing she’d done so. Too much going on in her head on so little energy. Thinking herself a fool, Allura plugged in the command and Shiro’s handsome face popped up before her. He gave her a big smile.

“There she is,” Shiro murmured, relieved.

Now that she knew more time than she accounted for had passed, seeing him now lifted a small weight that had been forming on her chest. Retrieving Lotor had driven her, but leaving Shiro so soon after just getting the real him back had been a hard thing. And it was still a slight jolt to see him with white hair.

“Coran knows,” she then muttered.

Shiro gave a nod. “Yes. He’s… gone through every reaction there is, and distracted himself by working with the Olkari on the ship day and night. I’ll let him know you’re on your way back as soon as we disconnect but, Allura… I need to tell the rest of the team. About Lotor.”

Of course he did, she reasoned, already knowing it needed to be done. But the thought still made her chest ache just a bit now that she was actually on her way to them. “Please let the Olkari leaders know as well that the Emperor will be arriving soon. After all they’ve done for us and the Coalition, I wouldn’t want them to be unprepared for nobility. He’ll be unable to speak to anyone due to injury but… they should know regardless.”

“I’ll handle it.” Something happened that had Shiro’s eyes wandering away from her. After a few ticks, he changed location to somewhere darker, and lowered his voice. “How’s he doing?”

Allura sighed as she checked on Lotor once again. He still looked to be sleeping and his chest wasn’t rising and falling enough with his breathing to her liking. “He isn’t doing so well. I was able to purge him of the quintessence but I can’t yet know all the side effects of the detox. He’s hurt, and I’m going to need the infirmary of the ship ready when I arrive so his injuries can be seen to. Because of the delicate nature of the situation, I want to leave Olkarion as soon as possible. They shouldn’t have to worry about this.”

“What about the Empire?”

Oh quiznak, she thought, paling some. She’d completely forgotten about the Galra and the fact that Lotor was their supreme leader. As far as she knew, he didn’t yet have a Second in Command. “That decision will have to be delayed until Lotor can make it himself. I’m sure there are protocols in place.” She _hoped_ , more like. “And, Shiro… please keep this burden light. I hate asking you to prepare the team; it’s the last thing you should be doing after everything you’ve been through and I’m so incredibly thankful for you. But don’t feel like you have to give them the defining explanation of Lotor’s returning to us. I will handle that myself.”

“Allura,” he said, and in _that_ voice. That voice the others sometimes teased him for. The _space dad_ voice, they once called it. She didn’t realize until then how much she needed to hear it. “I’m with you, okay? You and me, just like how it used to be. I’ll handle the team, you just make it to Olkarion safely, with Lotor. We’ll fix him up.”

She pressed her lips together, realized then that her eyes were filling up. Too many tears spilled already, mostly in the rift fighting for Lotor’s soul that she’d practically handed to quintessence. Shiro had been the one to realize she was in love. She didn’t know what she would do without him.

Where would Lotor be now if she’d lost Shiro forever?

“I’m sorry for worrying you and Coran.”

“I’m sorry you had a tough fight. Two vargas,” he said, restating her arrival time.

“Two vargas.”

Shiro signed off and Allura blinked away her lingering tears. Her hands took the controls, stabilizing the pod so she could keep it on course. The sooner they got to Olkarion, the sooner she could start properly patching him up.

And then they could finally rest, and work on everything else.

Romelle would be the biggest issue, she mused, her mind still speeding along and preparing for the inevitable confrontation. Allura was conflicted by it. On one hand she wanted to clear the air, to give her fellow Altean some comfort and not just let her storm off, just another of her kind lost. The girl had lost her family, after all. But on the other hand… she had to protect Lotor. She hadn’t done a good job before and, in fact, had made it all so much worse. He’d trusted her. Allura knew now that she was the first person to ever truly earn it.

Did he trust her still?

In the quintessence field, when his mind had been corrupted, he’d told her he didn’t trust her at all anymore.

It made her feel slightly sick.

“Olkarion?”

Even though his voice was weak and a bit scratchy, Allura was still startled by it. The pod jerked a little from her hands gripping the controls, but she quickly righted it and answered him. “Yes. Before I left for the rift, Shiro and I made the plan. We would meet on Olkarion, and remain there while the Olkari constructed us a new ship to replace the Castle of Lions. But it seems we’ve lost a few days.”

He went quiet again. It was hard for her to tell if he passed out, or was simply pondering the situation. When he did speak, it was practically a whisper. “I apologize for the destruction of your home.”

What did two people who had so much more to apologize for and so much forgiveness to give actually say when both parties were equally at fault for so many things? It was a wheel she couldn’t jump off of, just a constant spin that made them both go around and around and around without ever getting the chance to stand on steady ground. The Castle was gone because of him, but his rage had been because of her. Lotor keeping things from her – like living breathing Alteans – had made her shove him away, which led to the rage and his corruption.

A never-ending circle, as if they were sitting on a spinning ring around a sun about to explode and incinerate them both because they couldn’t seem to just _hop off of it_.

It was so easy to say things in the midst of danger and desperation. Things like _I’m sorry_ and _it was real_ and _I’ll never leave you_.

Things like _I love you_.

Did they still matter when the danger was done and the healing began?

“The girl will most certainly object to my presence on this new ship,” Lotor said suddenly, snapping her out of her grim thoughts.

Romelle, Allura thought. The issue at hand. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

“We will be coming to it in two vargas, Allura. Perhaps it would be best if you find my fleet and leave me to my own.”

Her head snapped in his direction. Still not looking at her, she saw. Still hiding. “You and I both know that would be incredibly unwise. The Empire is far too fragile to see their Emperor in such a state. It will give the opposing factions all the room in the world to make their move and undo everything we’ve accomplished.”

“Yes, I do know that,” he replied, a slight irritated snarl to his voice.

“Then why do you wish to return? You’re safest staying with Voltron while you recover. You’re safest with me.”

“Perhaps there is still a hint of insanity lingering inside me since the very last thing I want is for you to deal with any fallout and for your position on the team to be questioned because of one rash decision.”

Her eyes widened just a little. After everything she’d been through, everything she’d fought. Everything she would probably sacrifice. He would say that to her. “Do you honestly think I should’ve left you there, Lotor?”

Again, he went quiet. For a split second he’d been full of words. Now he seemed to have none. Allura tried to keep the annoyance back. There was no doubt they would have many talks about everything that had happened between them, but right now it would have to wait. They couldn’t discuss apologies and forgiveness and the future and the colony and their relationship right now. Neither of them were prepared for it. And she couldn’t make it worse by arguing with him.

“It is what I know,” he murmured.

A dagger right into her heart. Leaving him to suffer and die was something familiar to him. Her time in the rift with him had showed her how troubled his seemingly royal lifestyle had truly been, and Allura still didn’t think she was prepared to know more. She’d been given glimpses into his past that she hadn’t known, had never stopped to think about before everything had gone wrong. In the middle of madness, she’d discovered Lotor had endured unthinkable abuse at the hands of his terrible parents.

My darkest shame, Lotor had told her through delirious tears. Zarkon’s great regret.

With her heart aching for him, Allura pulled off her helmet, leaned over in her seat to take the side of his face and gently turn his gaze to hers. Before he could say anything, she kissed his lips, a firm press of mouths. A sweet connection.

He was not a dark shame. He was not a regret of any kind.

He was… everything.

Allura pulled back to look into his staring eyes. Yellow blue eyes so shadowed and haunted and hurt. She would make them shine again.

“I will always come back for you,” she told him, an edge to her voice, the command of a princess. He may outrank her now, but like this they were still a prince and princess who had been kept from each other all their lives. Perhaps in one of those millions of realities, their younger selves would not be affected by war. “Tell me you believe it.”

Lotor looked into her eyes, down to her lips before returning to the gleaming pink and blue gems that held too much sorrow and guilt. He could still taste her on his mouth, the flavor lingering there since she’d kissed him in the quintessence field. Did he truly believe it? he wondered, watching the way her face sank a little more with every tick that eased on by.

Something was still broken here, some big crack in the foundation they had been building between them. He had no strength to delve into it, so he gave her the answer he knew to be true underneath that crack that they would somehow weld shut.

“I believe you,” he told her, moving just a little to softly peck her lips for reassurance. “My princess.”

In two vargas they finally arrived on Olkarion, right at the designated coordinates Shiro sent to her. He’d taken care of everything, Allura saw as she landed the pod. Only two Olkari guards were present for the arrival and protection of the Galra Emperor, an obvious compromise, but one not needed with all of Team Voltron at the ready. There was Coran, nervously wringing his hands together and not knowing whether he should start crying tears of joy and relief, or use those hands to squeeze her neck. Pidge and Hunk looked confused and a little awkward. Keith and Krolia, both true Blades, stood calm but alert, a hand resting on a weapon with the wolf nearby. Lance couldn’t decide whether to be frustrated or just glad to have her back. Romelle wasn’t in sight, Allura realized as she did a quick scan of the area.

And there was Shiro, arms crossed and waiting for her. Back in his black vest and hair as white as her own. He was the most relaxed of the group, the most accepting. And, Allura saw with glee, the Olkari had built him a glorious new arm. A bright, shining silver. Not the gunmetal grey his Galra arm had been, but something new and high-tech and nowhere near anything Galra mechanics could create. There were beaming green lights in the joint of his elbow, smaller ones that continuous shot down the length of his arm for power. Allura felt such joy as Shiro lifted it in a wave. Now he didn’t have to feel like a dangerous weapon, or useless to the group.

The pod landed. Coran was the first to greet her when she opened the barrier, sprinting over with quick feet. He jerked her into a tight hug. She squeezed him back, momentarily resting her cheek on his shoulder. Hearing him sniffling, she eased off and softly patted his cheek.

“You do realize I’m incredibly angry with you, right?” he asked her.

Allura grinned. “I think you’re more relieved now that I’ve returned. But I will accept your anger, and tell you I’m so sorry.”

“Foolish girl,” he hissed, then pulled her in for another hug.

She lifted her eyes, spotted the rest of the team. Lance, Hunk, and Pidge had wandered closer, not sure what to do, and their wary eyes on Lotor. Also coming to accept her decision, Coran ran around to the other side with Shiro to help with the Emperor. The Olkari guards kept their position as requested by the leader of Voltron.

“Your highness,” Shiro said to Lotor as the Emperor’s eyes roamed his face and his new white hair. “Wish we were finally meeting in the flesh under better circumstances.”

Lotor mustered up a slight nod. It was now taking everything in him not to pass out. “Paladin,” he offered weakly.

“Holy quiznak,” Coran squealed, peering a little closer to study Lotor’s face. “You have the Altean markings now. Completely visible.”

As Hunk, Lance, and Pidge started moving in closer to see, Allura held up a hand to stop them. “It’s time to leave Olkarion. Hunk, stow the pod. Lance and Pidge, prepare the ship for takeoff. Everyone else, get on board. You both,” she said to Shiro and Coran as the others scrambled off, eager to be away from the awkwardness. “Help me get him to the infirmary. After treatment, he’s to be brought to my chambers.”

Coran didn’t answer for a beat or two. He just looked at her after that order before replying, “Yes, Princess.”

The more time they wasted, the more Lotor’s chin drooped towards his chest in exhaustion. Carefully, after seeing slashes cut here and there into his skin and trying not to look at the mess of his once slick white hair, the two men got him out of the seat and up onto his boots, Shiro’s new arm around his waist taking most of the Emperor’s weight. Allura jumped out, ready to lead them with Lotor.

And then the storm in the form of a small Altean girl blew in to stop her.

“Princess Allura, how could you?”

Allura spun around, Shiro and Coran halted. Romelle stood there, fire in her eyes, a snarl on her mouth, hands fisted at her sides. She could practically feel the heat in the distance between them as Romelle stood firm, blocking their path.

More betrayals. Would there be more left to come?

“Now is not the time,” Allura said. The sternness in her voice was perhaps not the best approach for the situation at hand, but priorities, she reminded herself.

“Have you forgotten everything I’ve told you? Have you pardoned him of his crimes? That man is a monster,” Romelle barked, shoving a finger in Lotor’s direction as Shiro and Coran held him up. “Why would you go back for him?”

“It was the right thing to do, Romelle.”

“Mind tricks,” she argued, her eyes finding Lotor’s and glaring into them. Her angry gaze fell on the marks on his face, ones that had not been there before. Purple white, she saw, a few tones lighter than the color of his skin. The deformed markings were plain to see now. Just another trick. A witch just like his mother. “You do not deserve the marks of a true Altean,” she told him darkly.

Lotor only stared at her.

“If you want to travel with us, Romelle, then I suggest you get on the ship,” Shiro told her, putting a little warning into his voice.

“So is that it, then?” she asked, her breathing quick and his fists lightly shaking. “This man kills my brother and _thousands of Alteans_ ,” she added, staring right at Allura, “and you allow him back into your home? You will _revive_ him after all he’s done?”

“Go,” Allura snapped, holding Romelle’s angry gaze with her own.

She didn’t answer, didn’t move. For a quick moment, Allura thought she might refuse to join them. It was something she ultimately didn’t want. She wanted to keep her people close to her, to hopefully start anew and find the others. She wanted to rebuild Altea if she could. When all was said and done, she was still Romelle’s princess, and needed to look after her.

But, Allura thought yet again, priorities.

Finally Romelle stormed off, her steps heavy and her jaw set in fury, her long blonde tendrils of hair billowing behind her. That’s when Allura noticed the ship Romelle was heading for. Her new Olkari ship.

Not unlike the Castle – the engineers had tried to keep to the original design – but perhaps a bit smaller and Olkarion made instead of Altean. Anyone could power it now, and that burden of moving their new home was lifted from her shoulders, something she didn’t realize relieved her. Like Shiro’s new arm, it gleamed in shiny silver, five hangars surrounding it for the Lions. It would take some time to learn the new technology, but a home was a home.

It was a magnificent ship. The new home of Voltron.

Pidge had better keep her room clean in this one.

Allura waved the boys over and they carried Lotor along. He panted a little through shivers, his forehead starting to sweat and mingle with the drying blood on his face. Once the ship began to take off into space, he groaned deeply, and finally passed out.

In the infirmary, Allura watched over him in the dark as he slept. She slid her hand in his, laced their fingers together. She wanted to tell him she was in love with him. For real this time, and not while he was deep in madness and unspeakable pain. She wanted to tell him she was sorry. She wanted to ask him if he really did forgive her.

Something not right. Something broken here.

She had to fix it.


	2. Chapter 2

_You belong to us._

He belonged to no one. He knew the whisper of a voice in the deepest parts of his mind was lying. He didn’t belong to it because he was owned by no living thing in the universe. Perhaps, as a child, he’d been Zarkon’s property. A slave he could direct with a simple flick of his wrist or turn away from with a flourish of the Emperor’s cape. And when he’d grown a little more, there was no way to argue the command when his father would force him into the Pits to fight. But Zarkon was long dead, he reminded himself. Lotor knew that well, because he’d been the one to end the tyrant.

At some point in his life, even Zarkon didn’t want the Galra Prince.

 _We know you. We know you better than anyone_.

Another lie, Lotor knew, and if he were awake he would shake his head in disagreement and brush it off. No one could truly know him because he was always multiple steps ahead of everyone else. No one could catch him long enough to know him. He was the exiled prince. He was the darkest shame of the Empire. He was what made them all weak and because of that, no one could catch him if he didn’t _want_ to be caught.

But that was another lie, he realized, his firm stance against the voice wavering just a tad. There was one person, someone he hadn’t accounted for. Someone he’d come to admire because she was _worthy_ of his admiration. A princess he’d not been given the chance to serve when Altea had thrived. She’d caught him, in multiple ways. With her… he’d freely given his entire being. As much of himself as he could.

 _And she crushed you in the palm of her unforgiving hand_.

No, Lotor wanted to shout, but he couldn’t speak because he was still asleep. Still passed out for Ancients knew how long. Defenseless. Allura had hurt him but she’d returned. She’d saved him from madness, had cleansed him, her healing alchemy mending whatever disconnection he’d had to his Altean blood so that his markings could shine like hers. They were the same.

They were the same. He was just like any Altean before him.

_You will never be whole. She will leave you again when your mixed blood shows your other half. The half she despises. Only we can fulfill you. You are our child._

A child raised in the void. He’d said that. His own words, and there was no one Lotor trusted more than himself. Why would he say that if it weren’t true?

Because… it was true. There was always a reason for the things he said.

_We felt you in your mother’s womb when she died. We snatched you for our own. We molded you. We stitched you together like a generous god. A child of the rift, and still a Prince to us. You are ours._

A crying baby, all alone in his heartbreaking tears. A growing fetus, feeling the cold of death as his mother breathed one last breath. A tiny heart beating in a tiny chest, stopping when that grim cold touched him in the womb. Marking him forever.

_How many times do we have to kill you to keep you forever, Lotor?_

And that tiny heart beating back to life when the rift turned his alchemist mother into a witch.

A witch full of a child she would come to forget.

_We have not forgotten. We have never forgotten you._

Even Allura forgot him. She forgot to grab him from the field. She forgot to save him, and had long enough for the dark to take him again. Maybe what they said weren’t lies, these whispers he’d heard in his head within deep sleep his entire life. Phantoms of the space between realities.

_You are our son. No matter how far you flee, we will return you to us, always._

Not Zarkon’s unwanted son. Not Honerva’s dead baby. A child raised in the void… by creatures he couldn’t see.

_Come back to us, Lotor._

Come back home. Maybe that was why he’d never belonged, maybe that was why he’d never been loved. He’d been too far away. And when Allura had left him, perhaps then he’d been home, where he was always meant to be. Not the Empire, not Daibazaal or Altea. His mixed blood, his half torn soul, was not a weakness in the quintessence field.

_Prince of the Galra? No._

Sleep was letting him go. He could feel his body, his mind waking up. Out of the depths and back to the harsh reality. What awaited him there?

_Prince of the Rift._

Lotor’s eyes opened, staring right into a dark room.

He wouldn’t panic. He felt too weak to panic, and maybe that alone should’ve put him on edge. But old instincts were hard to let go, and he always made sure he knew exactly where he was at all times. The Olkarion ship, with the Paladins of Voltron and extended company. A man who was not a clone and an Altean who wanted him jettisoned. The infirmary, he thought then as his Galra eyes quickly adjusted to the darkness. In a bed, under the covers in the dark save for the green lights of the screens to his left broadcasting his vitals.

And Allura.

She sat at his bedside, still wearing her paladin armor but had at least unpinned her hair from its confines. Her cheek was resting on the sheets, mouth slightly open as she slept. Her fingers entwined with his.

_I will never leave your side again._

It seemed she was keeping her promises so far.

He wanted her to rest after all she’d been through with him, but he still needed answers and she needed a proper bed to replenish her energy. Not wanting to shake her awake as she’d done constantly to him during their journey to Olkarion, Lotor simply squeezed his hand held in hers repeatedly until her eyes fluttered open. Feeling movement that was not her own, Allura shot up and found him awake.

“Welcome back,” she said softly in the dark with a smile. “How do you feel?”

“Like another ten-thousand deca-phoebs have been added to my life.” Was that his voice? That hoarse, scratchy noise? It was almost embarrassing. He cleared his throat before he spoke again, hoping it would help. “I have so many questions. I have so much to do.”

“You need to rest some more,” Allura argued, then glanced ahead at the screens to scan the current information. “It’s going to take some time for you to regain your strength, but it seems there is no permanent damage to your organs, or your brain. Shiro and Coran were able to stop the bleeding on your cuts, but the dressings will need to be changed soon. Other than that, all you need to do to continue healing is try to sleep.” She then grinned a little ruefully. “And I’m sorry, Lotor, but your hair is a chopped mess.”

His brow – with a nasty cut slashed through it - twitched a little, but his eyes were flat and uncaring. “I know. I did it.”

The grin slowly fell. She’d seen him at his worst, eyes glowing madly and claws ready to tear apart the next thing that came too close to his fragile body. Unfortunately he’d mostly been alone in the rift, and that very fragile body had suffered the consequences of his madness.

“Lotor—”

“I need to contact the Empire,” he said suddenly, attempting to sit up in the bed. He then froze. “What became of Haggar?”

Sighing but understanding, Allura stood to help him. “She’s vanished. I spoke to a lieutenant of yours and asked for her whereabouts. Once you woke, I was going to give you her location immediately so you could have her contained. Not that it would do much good,” she muttered, fixing the pillows behind him so he could sit upright instead of lying down. “But she’s gone. Your soldiers are on the lookout for her and are supposed to contact you once they find her… but you’ve been asleep for eighteen vargas, and there’s been no word.”

So the witch had fled, Lotor mused, ignoring the slight sting in the cuts along his body as he moved. But he would find her. She couldn’t hide forever. And seeing the equally determined look on Allura’s face now, Voltron wouldn’t let her go either after what Haggar did to their leader.

“And the Druids?” he asked.

“Some of them have been found, and the rest have also disappeared. What comes next will be your orders.”

As she adjusted him, Lotor glanced down at himself. His fingers pulled at the white material he was wearing as if it were soiled fabric touching his skin.

“What is this?” he asked.

“A dressing gown. We needed to put you in something light and breezy so your cuts could be seen to. What you were wearing before was mostly shredded.”

“I’m not wearing any pants.”

She let out a quick laugh. “No. You aren’t wearing anything besides the dressing gown. I’ll find you some real clothes when you’re up and about. The Olkari are small, and what they’ve provided for the ship won’t fit you. Shiro is close to your size though.”

As she leaned over him to sort out the sheets and practically tuck him back in, Lotor’s eyes roamed over her form. “You don’t have to stay here with me, Allura. If I must rest, then so should you. You did so much.”

“I want to stay.”

His eyes narrowed a tad. “You’re watching over me.”

She decided not to reply. Of course she was watching over him, was what she did want to say. It was another one of her promises given to him in the field. He was in this state because of her, but he was also in this state because of his own doing. If he’d been honest with her about the Colony, then Romelle wouldn’t have damned him to the quintessence field. And if she had let him speak instead of lashing out in great emotion…

Then Romelle wouldn’t be the reason why she was watching over him in the first place.

Allura wanted to care for Romelle. She wanted them all to work past this, wanted to be united again, an alliance that had made history. She wanted Romelle to be happy, wanted to find the other Alteans and hopefully build a new Altea, one where she would protect them and do that her father could not.

But as of right now… Allura didn’t trust her around Lotor. Especially with him being so weak. Emotion, as she knew well, sometimes trounced reason.

Maybe it would always trounce it, and they would always be flawed.

Lotor glanced around, looked to the wall of screens, lifted his arms that were bare of any of his technology. He had nothing on him but a dressing gown and some bandages. “I need… something. I need to reach Central Command.”

“Use this,” she said, placing in his palm a dark, round thing the size of a child’s ball.

He only stared at it blankly. “Is this a tree nut you’ve just handed me?”

More laughter. A sweet sound. “This ship and everything it’s equipped with is Olkari made. Most of the technology is constructed from nature, so yes, that is a tree nut. It is also an entire computer.” Allura tapped on the top of the nut in his palm, and a purple screen blinked up before him. Lotor only blinked, but she could tell he was impressed. “This one is for you. Use it at your leisure. The entire team is linked, in case you should need any one of us.”

“Hmm.” As he began plugging in the codes to contact the Empire, Allura realized she’d once again said the wrong thing. It was so easy to go back to the way things were right before their departure for the quintessence field, right before everything had fallen apart around her. So much had changed, and changed greatly.

The relationship between Voltron and the Galra Emperor was strained.

“Would you like privacy?” she asked him.

With his eyes on the screen, he replied, “I don’t mind if you wish to stay.” Allura wandered over to the screens with his vitals, crossing her arms over her chest and pretending to go over them again. She didn’t want to leave, but she didn’t want to seem overbearing while he contacted his people either. Tension and longing, Lotor thought, trying not to let it bother him. There was too much of both now between them. The face he needed then popped up on the screen.

“Lotor.”

“Dayak. Secure the line.” There was a time for titles and a time to remember her place in his life. Lotor needed to get a better handle on when both should be applied. He then watched as her face paled, her harsh eyes widening a little as she stared at him. He’d completely forgotten about his appearance.

“What happened to you?” she asked sharply.

A sunken, pallor face, deeply shadowed eyes, a wound plain to see through an eyebrow and his hair practically ripped from his scalp in some areas, severely cut in others. He hadn’t even looked this battle torn after the Kral Zera. “There was an altercation.”

“An altercation? You are the Galra Emperor, boy. If there’s an altercation, you’ve an entire army at your disposal. Why have I heard not one word that our leader was in battle?”

“I don’t wish to discuss it,” Lotor said, putting an edge in his gravelly voice that he knew would never frighten his governess. But, as Emperor, she had no choice but to obey. “I’ve handled it, but I need time to recover. I’m certain the missing Druids and the Fires of Purification would take the opportunity to attack if they discover I’m unprepared for a confrontation. I need you to spin a story and explain my absence.”

“Explain your absence,” she muttered, her jaw going tight. “That is dangerous to you and the Empire you’re barely hanging on to. If anything, you should be here so that _our_ doctors can tend to you and you can address the public yourself. The Galra should know how formidable their Emperor is and that he will shed blood for victory. Instead, you are probably with some _unworthy_ staff, and you’re throwing _me_ to the snick.”

“If there is anyone who can face a snick, it’s you, Dayak.”

Her eyes only narrowed at him. “You’re still a charmer. I loathe that about you.”

“And you’re questioning me, which is equally loathsome.” One side of his mouth perked up in a slight half grin when she sighed dramatically with a roll of her eyes. Dayak was harsh, but she was loyal to the Empire. “Besides, those are the duties of the Emperor’s right hand. If you accept the promotion, of course.”

She only stared at him, but he could see the temptation in her eyes. “I’m too old to clean up your messes in such a way, _sire._ I’m a teacher, not a commander.”

“A temporary promotion then. Just until I return and instate someone else. I want you to put together a task force to hunt down the witch Haggar and detain her, in any way possible.”

Her loyalty – perhaps more of a personal nature now – overpowered her hesitation. “Done. Anything else?”

“No.”

That look he knew well, those wandering eyes. She studied him closely, and Lotor almost felt the need to disconnect so she wouldn’t see things she couldn’t possibly be able to spot. But she’d always been able to decipher his injuries, even when they came from his father’s merciless hand. “Does this _recuperation_ have anything to do with Voltron?” she asked, her eyes going dark and deadly. “Or those marks under your eyes that weren’t there before?”

In his peripheral, Lotor noticed Allura’s back slightly wince. The movement made him oddly aware of all his aches and pains.

He decided to give her his most preferred excuse that had always served him well. “A simple misunderstanding.”

“I see,” Dayak uttered, not believing him for a tick. She’d taught him, after all. “I hope it was worth it. You look terrible, by the way.”

“You can reach me on this device. Goodbye, Dayak.”

“ _If_ you should need me, my Blood Emperor,” she began, chiming in before he could end transmission with a low voice full of fire, “then I can have the entire Galra fleet weapons ready to your location before another _simple misunderstanding_ can harm you again. Vrepit sa.”

And with that threat he knew was sent to anyone in the infirmary with him, Dayak blinked off to carry out her orders.

The exertion of the call took whatever little energy he had in him after waking from an eighteen varga faint. Lotor set the device away, leaned back into the pillows and let out a deep breath. Allura kept her back to him, arms crossed, head bowed. The tumbles of her silver hair didn’t appear as full as they normally did. After everything they’d been through in such a short amount of time, she was in desperate need of a breather. After a few dobashes in silence, Allura’s soft voice finally spoke up.

“You trust your governess enough to make her your second?”

“Dayak is loyal and proud, and fit to complete any task given to her by her Emperor. There’s no one else currently within the Empire who will respectfully stand in for me.”

It made them both frown without even looking at each other.

Dayak was the only one in the Empire Lotor trusted enough to keep things running smoothly in his name. There was no one else. Not anymore. Dayak was the only one…

Because his Generals were gone.

He couldn’t stop the question blurting from his mouth like vomit.

“Were you able to find my girls?” Lotor sighed and placed a hand over his eyes to rub them. What a stupid thing to say. The detox and the blood loss and the passing out had scrambled his brain, it seemed. He needed more time to catch up. “My Generals,” he corrected with a hint of frustration.

Allura stared down at her boots, guilt beating like another heart in her chest. So much blame, she thought, feeling the weight of it in her bones. But there was enough to crush them both.

How could two people destroy so much in so little time? They were supposed to be leaders. They were supposed to create and prosper.

“We didn’t search for them,” she answered honestly. No more lies, no more omissions. What they were left with was bad enough. “We didn’t think to.”

Lotor wasn’t worried for them. If anyone could survive the darkness of deep space, it was his team. But for the first time in countless deca-phoebs – excluding their brief time with Zarkon – he was truly without them. Lotor knew he could put Dayak on the job of locating them, if only to make sure they were safe and sound, but the way they’d abandoned him so carelessly…

Not carelessly, he told himself, Narti’s death flashing before his eyes and the way his remaining three had grieved for her, something he couldn’t allow himself at the time. It was _understandable._ Acxa had wanted peace and unity. Ezor and Zethrid had needed to belong, and know they had purpose and a family. He’d failed them all.

Perhaps it was time to let his Generals go for good.

“Lotor.”

His eyes flicked over to her, watched as she carefully sat on the bed next to him. The lights from the screens reflected in her eyes. Shiny, sad eyes, he saw. They hadn’t been that way when he’d coaxed her awake. They had gleamed bright with happiness and relief.

“Do you remember?” she asked, keeping her gaze on his. “What happened in the rift. Do you remember everything?”

He remembered hearing the voices he usually heard in sleep, and worrying some that he shouldn’t be hearing them when awake. He remembered feeling the darkness creeping closer, something he could usually hold at bay. And when Allura had broke his heart, when she’d snapped it in two when comparing him to his father… Lotor could remember feeling an invisible hand easily grip his throat, shoot poison into his veins, and begin the process of taking his mind, body, and soul.

Usually, he was strong against the whispers. Allura’s words had utterly crippled him and left him defenseless. Easily corruptible.

“Yes,” he told her truthfully.

But another thing he could remember was her showing up in a dangerous place to retrieve him. He could remember her desperation to have him back, her tears, her cries. Her words she had yet to give to him again. Words he wasn’t offering either.

 _I love you_.

Now where did they stand?

He waited for her to continue, but she only closed her eyes and kept them that way. What he’d been waiting for her to say, he didn’t know. Maybe he wanted to hear those words again. But how could she say them when he couldn’t open his mouth to give them back to her either? It was different now, because they weren’t trapped in the dangerous rift, breathing the last of the oxygen as he bled out and she faced a dark fate of corruption somewhere she would never be found again by her friends. The threat of death could make anyone say anything.

What more could they say now that reality was crashing all around them? They weren’t in the rift anymore.

They were alive and safe, and had to face the consequences.

When her eyes opened again the sad shine was gone, replaced with the focus of a princess who had no choice but to keep moving forward.

Lotor knew it was forced.

“The infirmary isn’t very comfortable,” she began, and a very soft blush bloomed on her cheeks. “And Coran always puts me in the biggest room. I made the suggestion before, but now that you’re fully conscious, I thought it more respectful to ask you…” She stopped, scratched at her head a bit. “Of course I can have other accommodations prepared for you, and I don’t want to be presumptuous, but I do have the biggest room and the biggest bed and it’s very comfortable in there and you would be safe and… comfortable…”

Rambling. She was rambling like a lunatic. Lotor took pity on her and finished her offer.

“Once I’m discharged from the infirmary, you’d like me to come sleep in your quarters with you?”

Allura blinked at him, the blush no longer soft, but completely obvious. “Yes,” she answered quickly, her fingers tapping away nervously in her lap. “If you want to. Um… I want you to,” she murmured. “But it’s your choice.”

One of the mistakes made between them was that she’d never given him the chance to choose. To gain her trust, he’d had to tell her the Empire’s weaknesses when he had first become her prisoner. And when his father had hung the Green Paladin’s relative over them like bait, Lotor had been marched straight into the enemy’s claws. The Kral Zera had been vetoed. They’d drawn their weapons on him so quickly after discovering the Colony that even Lotor had been momentarily blindsided. And they’d sealed the rift after leaving him to die within it. He’d _always_ given her a choice. Why was he even still here?

Lotor knew why. One look at her, at her tired eyes and her messy hair and the talons of great guilt still hooked in her flesh, and he knew what choice he would make.

There was damage, but it wasn’t beyond repair. He had fought far worse than tension and longing and guilt to give up on Princess Allura, even if she’d given up on him, regretting it ultimately.

“I would like that,” he answered finally, sparing her more wounds to her heart. “As long as it’s comfortable.”

She gave him a big smile even with the light teasing of her rambling. The embarrassed and worried tone of her blush softened to something far more endearing. “Well then. I suppose I should attempt to head there now to bathe before something calls me away.” But she stayed where she was, each feeling the weight of the other on the infirmary bed. Her eyes moved to his, lowered just a tad. “Purple white,” she said softly.

Her gaze was hypnotic. It always had been. “What is?”

“Your marks.” Allura lifted a hand to lightly drag one fingertip under his eye. They would always be in his unique shape and unlike hers, but they were visible. Probably from the intense alchemy it took to save him. “You haven’t had a proper chance to see them as they are now. They’re purple white in color. Almost silver.”

 _You do not deserve the marks of a true Altean_.

Romelle’s grim words lingered between them like an angry cloud, ready to drop the storm on them and bury them in heavy rain. Lotor had yet to develop an opinion on his markings now visible for the universe to see, and would need to inspect them on his own time, to mull over these news traits of his here to stay. And as she touched under his eye, her mouth grinning ever so slightly, Lotor wondered if it was the universe and all who lived in it who didn’t deserve to see them on his face. He’d _always_ been Altean.

It shouldn’t have to be something he needed to prove with markings and magic.

“I’ll try to find them,” Allura said, now brushing the backs of her fingers down his cheek and to his neck. These intimate touches of theirs were still new, but apparently ones that couldn’t be helped. Before the rift, there was only a kiss between them. “Your Generals,” she clarified.

What could he say to that when he’d just decided to allow them a life without him? He should’ve told her no. He should’ve instantly told her that they would be fine and find a way because every confidence he’d once had had gone into them. They deserved to be free from the constant back and forth of loyalties. But Lotor didn’t say anything at all.

If he didn’t, then he couldn’t stop her.

Instead, he took her hand touching him, held it in his grip. Before he knew it, their fingers were sliding down, dipping into the shape of the other’s hand. Their palms touched and they found the beating pulses in their wrists, until their fingers wrapped around it, feeling the steady thumps of their hearts as they held on tight. They should be a unit. They should forever be united. A great force to change the universe.

They were a work in progress.

Allura needed the contact and maybe Lotor did too. Kisses in the hangar before hard separation and cruel accusations, kisses in the rift after a life saved, kisses in the pod to instill trust in each other. More kisses to prove that they could not be torn apart.

She leaned in, allowing him to continue resting on the pillows to regain his strength so that he could come to her bed with her. Allura tilted her head, puckered her lips for the taste of him. Lotor lifted his other hand not grasped in hers and placed his fingertips under her chin. So close to uniting again.

“Allura.”

Her eyes widened, lips a breath away from the emperor. She spun around, Lotor peeking over her shoulder to spot their visitor, but the voice was familiar. Lance stood awkwardly in the doorway of the infirmary, hands shoved in the pockets of his jeans.

 _Before something called her away_. Apparently it would be a paladin, and at the worst time. “Yes?”

“The Coalition is on the horn,” he told her, jerking his head out of the infirmary. Trying to seem casual. “They want a statement from you, since you were gone those few days. Shiro kept them off your back so you could rest. I guess there’s rumors going around about… our fight with Lotor.”

Lance watched as both of their faces did the exact same thing, easing into that expression of dignified royalty one might only be born with. It was instant for both of them. Time to work, time to negotiate, time to mend. Even after Allura had practically chained herself to Lotor while he slept these last eighteen hours, even as Lotor sat in the bed with cuts on his face and his hair shredded to bits, their instinct to lead was automatic.

Something, a little piece inside Lance, went cold in his chest as he witnessed it.

“Rumors,” Allura repeated, nodding her head before rising to her boots. She then looked back to Lotor. “I’ll take care of it. Sleep some more. I’ll return soon.”

Their hands left their hold on their wrists, sliding down before their fingers gripped each other and finally disconnected. Allura followed Lance out of the infirmary, the halls dark so that Lotor could sleep peacefully. Small flashing green lights of the Olkarion ship zoomed down the length of the hallway on the floor, signaling the path to the bridge. As they walked in silence, Allura attempted to smooth down her messy hair for when she addressed the Coalition. She didn’t have a band to pull it up.

“Allura,” Lance said, suddenly stopping and almost causing her to crash into him. When he faced her, there was a deep line between his brows, his cheeks lightly tinted. “This is… weird.”

They were alone in the hallway. She decided he’d wanted it that way before they met with the others. “Weird?”

“Strange,” he corrected, a word she would be more familiar with. “This entire situation. It’s so… I don’t know what to think of it. God,” he breathed, pulling out one hand from his pocket to brush his hair back. “I feel like it’s two steps forward, three steps back with this guy.”

She only tilted her head. “Steps? With who?”

Lance sighed, that hand going over his eyes before he reworked his words and looked to her again. The icy cold in his chest was giving him word vomit, but it felt like the only way to feel better again was to let it out and hurl. “Lotor. I don’t really know how the others feel at the moment, but it seems like any little bit of progress we make with him always goes shitty for us in the end. Two steps forward,” he explained, moving a hand through the air in front of him before yanking his elbow behind himself. “Three steps back.”

 _Oh_. Allura called on every lesson she’d learned from the Paladins when it came to Earth lingo. She could get through this delicate conversation. “You’re uncomfortable with him being here.”

“I’m not just uncomfortable, Allura. I’m… confused as all hell. I mean, how many times can we go around the mountain? There’s history. First, we find out Zarkon has a kid, and that kid starts shooting at us. Then he’s saving Keith and we’re throwing him in a cage. Then, he’s turning us into his errand boys and hopping in Black for a Galra ceremony like he has every right to. _Then_ ,” he continued, exasperation plain to see on his face, “you and him are flying off to some magical Altean fairy land right before he assembles his _batship_ to kill us. So yeah, I’m a bit confused that he’s on our new ship, a ship we had no choice to build because it’s _his fault_ we lost the other one, taking one of _our_ beds. And if I’m completely honest, I’m kinda pissed off about it.”

Allura set her jaw as she stared at him. She’d had a feeling a confrontation like this would block her path, regardless of Shiro’s assistance. Her mistake had been assuming it would be Romelle to truly start it. “I don’t know how to respond to that,” she answered honestly.

His frustration was giving him misplaced courage. Now Lance couldn’t stop. “I just want answers. I want to know why - no matter how many times I’ve said to get rid of him - that guy is _still_ in our inner circle. Are we just gonna wait patiently, twiddling our thumbs before he starts shooting again? I don’t want to sleep with my Bayard under my pillow every night he’s here.”

“You don’t have to, Lance.”

“Why? Because you two are making kissy faces at each other again? Because he’s changed, _again_? Why? I just want _answers_.”

Her face fell into a slight glower, and the lack of sleep was starting to give her a headache. She wanted to be delicate, to be sensitive to anyone on the team who would be feeling exactly as Lance was now. But like this, it was different. With _Lance_ … it was different, and she knew why. “You’re quick to blame him, but I am at fault too. Lotor’s blood is on our hands.”

“You’re right about that,” Lance told her, eyes angry, and a little heartbroken too. The cold inside him was hard to ignore. “He attacked us. He attacked the team, Allura. We had to defend ourselves, and if it meant keeping us alive, then I guess that’s what we had to do.”

It made her flinch. Made her eyes go sad even though she tried to hang on to something a little more heated. “It wasn’t his fault. I… I said something horrible to him.”

“Oh, I know. I heard.” Lance straightened, crossed his arms over his chest. Held her gaze even though it hurt him to hurt her. “Seems to me he’s unstable if he lets a few words make him go nuts. The clock’s ticking until the cycle begins all over again.”

That made the sadness weak against the fury that gobbled it right up. “You have no right to say that.”

“No? Not a week ago you were crying in my arms, telling me how big of a mistake it was that you trusted him. Are we gonna pretend that never happened?”

_Everyone’s darkest shame, everyone’s great regret. Even yours._

No, Allura thought, her hands fisting at her sides as she remembered Lotor’s words from the rift with tears streaming down his cheeks. She would not regret a single moment. Another one of her promises to him.

She had to keep them, no matter the cost.

“If you need some _perspective_ , Lance,” she began, her voice hard and icy, “then picture it this way. Imagine your father. You talk about him enough. You can go on and on about how wonderful he is, can’t you? Imagine him hating you. Imagine him beating you after you’re so carelessly traded away. Now picture your entire family. In another reality where you’ve switched places with Lotor, they despise you. Your father, your _wonderful_ father, has ordered them to see you as _less_ than them. Now you think of me,” she ordered, and maybe it was wrong to bring it up, but it was the only way. “Imagine I’ve just said to you the worst thing you could possibly hear. You have feelings for me, ones you never thought you were capable of. Now imagine me saying the one thing that will break your heart.”

And Lance had no choice but to think of it. As he looked at her heated face, her angry and desperate and _guilty_ eyes, he heard her voice in his head saying to him the very _last_ thing he would ever want to hear.

 _I don’t have feelings for you and I never will_.

The cold spread, and left him freezing and unfeeling.

Allura wasn’t yet ready to let it go now that it was started. “It feels like dying. Doesn’t it?”

He wasn’t a space prince. He wasn’t a mighty emperor. He was just a boy from Cuba, and even after all they’d been through together, even after all the special moments, all the bonding, all the laughs and the tears, and the heartbreak when she’d cried on him because Lotor hadn’t trusted her enough… he still wasn’t what she wanted.

The princess always wanted the prince. And he wasn’t one.

He was so cold.

Allura lifted her chin, tried to regain composure for when she spoke to the Coalition. The exhaustion, her disheveled appearance, the headache, it would all have to wait and be placed aside. Her agony over Lotor was enough, and she couldn’t handle any more.

“I’m sorry for what happened,” she told Lance, trying to soften her voice, trying to keep it from shaking too. “I’m so sorry that my decisions put you and the team in danger. You all are my family, and I don’t think I can ever forgive myself for what’s been done. I hope we can move past it, because not having you as my friend would destroy me.”

His eyes softened, though the cold didn’t ease. It still hurt, still froze him down to the bone. But her words now felt like perhaps some warmth wasn’t too far away. Maybe. “Allura.”

She closed her eyes, met his when she opened them again. She couldn’t continue this. She had to do her job, take care of herself, and get back to Lotor. But one last thing. Parting words that _needed_ to be said, for all of them.

“You need to let me go, Lance.”

Allura didn’t wait to see if he was behind her as she continued on down the hall in the darkness, fighting back frustrated tears.

Back in the infirmary, Lotor stared down at the tree nut on the bedside table. His eyes were heavy from exhaustion and the aches were creeping back up, but he couldn’t seem to roll over under the sheets and fall fast asleep. There was an entire Empire to return to, and he needed to heal. But the amazing little device called to him, and a lingering thought kept him from that sleep.

It would only take two ticks.

He reached for it, activated it and the screen popped up before him. Amazing, he thought again, before typing in the information, the codes. If they’d survived, there was probably galaxies between them, and no way a signal could properly reach out, even with the advanced technology of the Olkari. But he did it anyway. He plugged in their signatures he knew by heart to track them.

If for whatever reason his General’s location popped up on the screen, then Lotor would have Allura look into it. Maybe tracking them was the final decision in all this. If he could find them now, then he would go get them. If not…

_No genetic signatures detected_

The words on the computer were harder to read than simply accepting their removal from his life. There was hardly a chance the device could actually locate them, but he’d had to try. He owed them that much, to have Voltron find them and bring them wherever they wanted to go, even if it wasn’t by his side. Lotor stared at the unfortunate result for a few moments.

_Time to let go._

Of so much, he added as he put the device away. But some things were hard to forget. And some things were hard to forgive.

He heard soft footsteps from out in the hallway, sharp eyes that could see through the darkness flicking up out of instinct. He knew Allura’s steps, and those weren’t hers, though they were similar.

When Romelle passed by, she stopped, turned her head slowly to stare at him from the open doorway. He could see the gold in her hair, the bright blue of her Altean markings under a pair of disgusted pink eyes. It was the way to the bridge since Allura had gone in the same direction, but obviously she wanted to keep an eye on him.

He couldn’t know what she was feeling in that moment. The man she hated more than any other, the monster who’d killed her family, was now lying comfortably in a soft bed, their machines keeping track of his vitals and helping him to get well. And her princess, Lotor thought, holding her gaze without expression, a princess she never knew, had sided with him over her. A princess he hadn’t been able to give her to keep her safe.

There were things even Romelle didn’t know.

He was far too exhausted to feel the heat of her glare before she breezed off out of sight. Perhaps he should ask for a weapon. Perhaps he should find one himself in case anyone else on this ship wanted him off of it by any means necessary.

Lotor slid back into bed and pulled the covers over himself, only the ruins of his white hair peeking out from under it.

And whispers calling to him in sleep.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The rating will change soon. I promised a smutty sequel and I swear I'll deliver. Please comment :)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know somewhere LM said that Shiro had all of the clone's memories after taking over his body, but in this story, he does not.

Sleep stole him for ten more vargas.

Intense cramps in his stomach from hunger woke him while he was still laid up in the infirmary. Lotor didn’t have a true appetite – in fact, he felt even sicker just thinking about chewing and swallowing any kind of food – but his body demanded it so he wouldn’t starve. The last time he’d eaten anything had been right before he’d left for the quintessence field with Allura to test the comet ships.

It felt like a lifetime ago.

A lifetime of agony and madness and loneliness and death so close he could feel it better than that pulsing pain. A lifetime, also, of incredible longing for the woman who’d saved him.

And even though there was no need for her to stay, when he opened his eyes, Lotor found the princess once again sitting in a chair at his bedside, waiting to assist him with whatever was needed. She brought him soft food, helped him clean up a little too. Coran peeked in every now and then. Most likely checking on Allura when Lotor instantly met the old man’s narrowed eyes before his gaze roamed the infirmary room for any sign of questionable behavior on his part.

Other matters needed to be addressed on both of their ends. Allura had a reassured Coalition to run and a Lion of Voltron to pilot and a new ship to become familiar with. Lotor kept in touch with Dayak, who was handling the Empire in his absence as exceptionally as he knew she would.

But most importantly, he needed to keep recovering so he could return to that Empire strong.

After food and a bath and a very soft kiss on his cheek from Allura before she left for Coalition rounds in the Blue Lion, Lotor found himself in another room of the infirmary, sitting on a hovering medical table with his feet dangling from the edge. Allura had been right when stating the Olkari clothes aboard the ship wouldn’t fit him, and he refused to walk around the ship in the hideous dressing gown. Compromising, Lotor had pulled on borrowed clothes of what the earthlings called gray sweatpants and a white tank. They belonged to Shiro, the man closest to Lotor’s size.

That same man stood behind him now, taking over Allura’s job in tending to him.

Shiro was mostly quiet as he checked all of the bandages covering Lotor’s body and the deep cuts underneath them. He changed them all with a slow and steady and oddly delicate hand, eyes focused on the job and doing it the way it needed to be done. With the exception of Allura herself and Coran, Shiro was the only one aboard the Olkari ship Lotor was safest with. There was no bad blood between them, not really. It wouldn’t have been fair to assign any of the other paladins to the job after the altercation with Voltron and Sincline, when tensions were still high.

But Lotor couldn’t help but keep a sharpened eye on the soldier, and even flinched a little when Shiro came too close with a pair of pointy scissors.

Shiro noticed the prince’s apprehension each and every time, and the only response he gave was a reassuring half grin and a pair of kind eyes. But this particular time, he spoke up.

“I’m not going to hurt you, you know.”

Still too weak. Still not sharp enough. Lotor usually kept himself a mystery, or at least someone a man couldn’t quite place. He wasn’t doing a good job keeping up with that image now with the Black Paladin. “One can never be too sure.”

The half grin didn’t wane at all. “Still think I’m a clone?”

“My last clear memory of you alone is Voltron’s leader handing me off to the witch. Forgive me if I’m looking for any signs of black magic and mind control.”

Shiro’s white brows rose. “Hmm. When you put it that way, it sounds pretty justified to me. I have to admit it’s taken me a bit to completely get back into the swing of things, but I assure you Allura did good work.”

Allura, who implanted the paladin’s consciousness into the body of the dead clone who’d kidnapped him using the alchemy of Oriande Lotor had helped her master. “When you put it that way,” he repeated softly.

Shiro used the scissors and gently snipped off the old bandages at Lotor’s right arm above his elbow. “Everyone on this ship has given me a report of their time with you after my death. Obviously those reports were in their own words and given orally, so you can imagine the theatrics of a few of them. I’m trained to put two and two together and paint a nice picture for myself, so I can make my own opinion on the former Prince of the Galra and the alliance. Lance told me their first real encounter with you was a wild goose chase like something out of a horror movie.”

Lotor drew his brows together. “I… don’t know what a goose is, but the description seems oddly appropriate.”

He laughed and rubbed a swap coated with disinfectant over the angry red cut. The Prince didn’t even flinch from the sting. “So why the chase? Keith told me they were completely defenseless but, in the end, you didn’t really do anything to them.”

“I had my own team awaiting orders, and an entire pitiless Empire watching my every move. And a good leader knows his opponent well before the real fight.”

“That’s true.” Shiro placed a fresh bandage on the cut, moved to the next one on the top of Lotor’s left shoulder. “You’re not like Zarkon.”

Lotor went very still, and stared off at nothing while ignoring the pain of the cuts as they were cleaned and covered. Something poured into him, some strange emotion he couldn’t quite place. It was similar to the elation of finding something incredibly valuable, something a man could search for his entire life, but once it was found, what did he do with it exactly? It was almost a myth. A treasure in a story that possibly never existed.

When was the last time he’d heard those words? You’re not like Zarkon.

Lotor realized then that he’d never heard them before, but he’d been waiting for them desperately. He’d been waiting all his life.

_You’re not like Zarkon._

No, Lotor agreed mentally, as he always did. A lifetime of trying to convince others it was true, and this earthling was the one to see it. No, he wasn’t like his father.

And he would never be.

“That means something to you, doesn’t it?” Shiro asked.

Something? Lotor wanted to question. It wasn’t just something, it was everything. He closed his eyes, sunk into the pain as Shiro inspected the ruined skin of his shoulder that still didn’t feel quite right. It was everything, and a man he didn’t truly know was offering the words he’d been waiting to hear. His heart ached then, a deep unpleasant squeeze inside his chest that almost took his breath away. A stranger had been the one to believe he was not like Zarkon.

And not Allura, the one person he _wanted_ to believe it more than anything.

“You don’t know me,” Lotor muttered. It was easy to defend himself, but how did he simply _agree_? He barely knew how to respond. “Any encounters and conversations we’ve had in the past are all obsolete as of now.”

Shiro knew he struck a nerve, even if it was more towards the positive than the negative. Some things needed time, time to adjust and time to accept. He would give that time to Lotor. “So let’s start over. You don’t know me either.”

“I know you better than you may think.”

“We’ve never met before Allura returned from the field with you,” Shiro reminded him. “Not really.”

Lotor tilted his head to the side some so Shiro could continue working on his cut. Some adhesive was applied in a few areas were the skin had split again. “You’re the Champion.”

Shiro’s hands stopped working for a moment. As far as he knew, Lotor had never brought up his gladiator slave title with the clone. “You heard of me? You know that name?”

“Of course. Word of your many victories spread throughout the Empire, even to those on the edge of it. It was difficult for me to believe an earthling could last so long in the Pits, and for a long time I believed it to be some strange ploy of my father’s. Surely the witch had disguised some ruthless monster as a lowly human to humiliate the most blood thirsty of Galra gladiators. They would fight harder to defeat you, and shine in the eyes of the Emperor when they won. But you remained undefeated, and I was proven wrong when Voltron brought me aboard the Castle of Lions as a prisoner. You impress me, Shiro.”

He bandaged Lotor’s shoulder, smoothed it down and heard the prince suck in a soft breath from the discomfort. “I still don’t remember all of the fights. I still don’t understand how I won every time.”

Lotor understood. He knew the arena, every inch of it, every boom made by the audience and every scoff hissed out by his father.

“Fighting in Zarkon’s Gladiator Pits are battles unlike any other. When you stand there, smelling the blood under your boots and feeling the weight of your weapon in your hand and hearing a thousand mouths curse you with a painful defeat, it becomes your entire world. Real war is not viewed by excited spectators. It doesn’t have an audience and it doesn’t come with cheering. The Pits stand out, because one wrong move on your part could mean a million eyes watching you fall, and _judging it_.” Lotor shifted a little, decided to focus his eyes on Shiro’s shadow on the ground before him so he wouldn’t hear the cheering in his head, or Zarkon’s orders when he commanded for another opponent to face his one and only son.

_Let’s test you, my boy._

The shifting made the chopped longer pieces of Lotor’s shredded hair move over his other shoulder. And on his back, Shiro’s eyes instantly found the purple skin outside the white tank, skin he probably shouldn’t have seen.

Ruined skin. Familiar skin, because Shiro’s looked that way too. Scars that matched his own, yet they also looked… a lot worse. Bits of them not covered by the tank.

Did Allura know about this?

Turning away, Shiro decided it was far too private to bring it up to the prince. Some things just weren’t discussed.

“I’m not going to ask how you know that,” Shiro said, tossing used medical tools into a container to be washed. A little bit of blood swirled through the water inside it.

“Good. You’re a smart man.”

“Smart enough to know we have to do something about this hair. What do you say?”

Lotor automatically lifted his hand and ran his claws through the locks. “You have experience in this?” he asked a little apprehensively. Not that it would matter. The style was already butchered.

“Sure. I usually take care of my own hair. And we can’t leave it like this, you look like a crazy person.” Contemplating, Shiro swished the scissors around in the water, cleaning them of any leftover blood, before drying them off and retrieving a comb from the supply cabinet. “I used to cut my ex-boyfriend’s hair too. It saved us some money.”

Lotor stiffened a little when he felt Shiro pulling the comb through a few knots. No one had ever brushed his hair before in his adult life. He’d never allowed it. He didn’t allow a lot of intimate acts. “Boy… friend? What is a boy friend?”

“Oh, well, it means… Hmm. I’ve never had to explain it before. It’s what you call someone you’re in a relationship with, but you’re not married. An intimate, romantic relationship. A committed one. Obviously it’s the title for the males.”

“I see,” Lotor murmured, trying to relax. But his hair was an atrocious sight in its current state, and needed to be dealt with. “You enjoy the company of men.”

Shiro gave a shrug. “I enjoy the company of whoever catches my eye. In fact, right before I left for the Galaxy Garrison as a cadet, I got a big sendoff kiss from this girl who lived next door. I had the biggest crush on her, so I was feeling pretty good on the bus… before boot camp began the next morning and made me forget all about her.” And then one day he walked into class, spotted the shy boy with glasses in the corner reading a book. A seemingly invisible boy Shiro had _instantly_ noticed, even when he wasn’t actively looking. “Adam was my first real relationship though. That’s his name. Adam.”

“Adam,” Lotor repeated softly. Earthlings were a strange race, he decided as he tried to keep up with all the foreign words like _boy friend_ and _crush_ and _boot camp_. One day he needed to visit earth and learn their peculiar ways. He figured it would be a nice challenge to tackle. “I’m assuming you met this boy friend at the Garrison, then?”

He laughed softly at the way Lotor spoke earthling terms that obviously confused him even as he used them. “Yeah. He was a pilot too, and we were chosen for flight partners. He was so smart. Smarter than me by a longshot. He was just… amazing, and we balanced each other quite well. He excelled where I lacked, and he was somehow always there when things got bad for me. Like he knew exactly what I needed when I needed it.” Shiro ran his hands down the chopped length of Lotor’s jagged hair, trying to find a point of attack before he picked up the scissors. He would just have to wing it. “We worked together every day, improved as pilots every day. And then suddenly… we weren’t just flight partners. We rose in the ranks together, found our preferred place in the Garrison, moved into one suite. We were together for years. Even on our way down the aisle.”

Lotor watched Shiro’s Olkari hand reach for the scissors. “Down the aisle?”

“We were going to get married,” Shiro clarified, then started snipping at all the ruined ends. “It was just this unspoken thing, neither of us asked the other. We were lying in bed one night, and Adam says right out of the blue that he wants to go ice fishing for our honeymoon. A honeymoon is a special vacation you take together after the wedding. Anyway, he says it’s something he’s always wanted to do, apparently. Without really thinking about it, about the whole marriage thing, I tell him ice fishing sounds miserable, and we should go camping instead. Some pretty forest by a river, and we can fish there. We really liked the outdoors. Adam goes quiet for a while, then simply says, no, ice fishing, and turns over and falls asleep. After that we were engaged, and he was my fiancé. We weren’t in a rush but… we never got there.”

What kind of man had won over the heart of the Champion, the leader of Voltron, the Black Paladin succeeding his father? Lotor wondered. He could barely put an imaginary face to this spectacular Adam. “You said he was an… _ex_ -boy friend.”

Shiro frowned a little as he snipped away at Lotor’s hair, trying to give it more shape. “We broke up. Ended the relationship,” he corrected, reminding himself once again he was talking to an alien. “I wanted to go on a mission. It was going to take three years, and Adam didn’t want to wait. He made me choose so… I chose the stars. And then the Galra took me and my team. I was gone for another year.”

“Why would he give you such an ultimatum?” Lotor asked.

It could have been seen as a betrayal, especially when someone would discover how sick Shiro had been before the tests of the Galra had changed him. It could have been heartless even.

Being held captive by an alien race could make a man think, Shiro thought, remembering the cold and quiet nights aboard a dark command ship and waiting for his next fight. So could death and resurrection, and the intense love he felt for his family living on this very ship.

He knew the truth now, and Adam was not at fault.

“I may lead Voltron and I may have once been the Black Paladin. They called me Champion, and everyone here would be the first to tell you that I’m a selfless hero. But romantic relationships… I suck at them,” he admitted softly. His one great weakness. “My goal to reach the stars was always more important than Adam. I didn’t mean for it to be, but it’s how it was. He put up with a lot, sacrificed a hell of a lot more than I did, and crawled into bed alone more nights than he deserved. I don’t blame him for leaving me, and it’s been years now. He’s moved on. I can feel it.”

And he could, Shiro knew. You don’t spend so long with someone, learn so much, and not know when they’ve been set free. Shiro leaving gave Adam a new life, one where he wasn’t waiting for his love to return, and one day be the first choice.

One last snip, one last combing, and Shiro walked around the table to look at Lotor. His white hair was much shorter now, ends touching the middle of his neck and the same length as that ever floating bang in front of his alien eyes. Longer hair suited him better, but at least it wasn’t a mess anymore. The areas that had been ripped from his scalp were already growing back in.

“It looks good,” Shiro told him with a grin, then pointed to his own short white hair. “We match. Kind of.”

Altean alchemy was amazing, Lotor thought, studying Shiro’s hair. It could even bring the dead back to life. He would’ve given anything to know exactly what it was about Allura’s alchemy that turned the paladin’s hair as pale as his own.

“Not for long,” Lotor commented, running his claws over the top of his head, feeling the new shortness. His hair had always grown out fast. He had his Galra blood to thank for that. The two men were quiet as Shiro sat down on the medical table next to Lotor, leaning his forearms on his thighs as he twirled the scissors through his fingers like a switchblade.

“I don’t talk about Adam,” Shiro said softly after a few moments, keeping his eyes on the tool in his hands. “Keith knew him, because we took him in with us for a while. But we don’t talk about him now. Allura doesn’t even know I had a… She doesn’t know.”

Remaining straight, Lotor kept his eyes on his lap. “It is your business. The people on this ship don’t need to know everything.”

“But isn’t that what started this?”

When Shiro looked over at him, Lotor had no choice but to stare back. Whatever progress he’d made with the paladin, however little, felt like it was being taken away with that one question. The colony, Lotor concluded, feeling the slight need to leave the infirmary and any accusations. Shiro was talking about the colony, and what the discovery of it had brought upon them all.

“Look,” Shiro began, holding up his Olkari hand. He could practically see the prince raising his back like an angry cat. “You’re right. Not everything is everyone’s business. I don’t talk about Adam because I don’t want to. And I realized I don’t want to because it… makes me incredibly sad and angry with myself that I didn’t try harder. In my down time, when I can’t sleep because I hear those cheers from the Pits in my head, I think about what I could’ve done to make him happier. I think about telling him we’ll go ice fishing every single year if that’s what he wants, even if it’s miserable. And living up here, in the stars,” he murmured, a soft grin spreading over his mouth, “I came to discover that being in love means doing one miserable thing after the next. But the thing about that kind of misery is that you’re happy to do it. Every single day, and you know the one you love is feeling it right alongside you. But when it comes to you, Lotor… I think you’re taking on the wrong kind of misery.” Shiro held his intense gaze, sat up straighter so he could meet the Prince at the eyes.

He could see the misery built up between Lotor and Allura. And it wasn’t the kind that would bind them together forever, the kind that meant great sacrifice for the one you loved. It was the kind Shiro knew, before Adam had left him. Before Kerberos. Misery that would destroy them.

 _How do you know that_? Allura had asked him right before she’d left for the quintessence field to save Lotor. How did Shiro know she was in love with the Prince?

He knew because he could see himself and Adam in the two alien royals. And he couldn’t allow them to reach the end of the line. Not when they could be better, and go on to do great things together. Things that would heal this broken war-torn universe.

Lotor studied Shiro closely. There was no clone here, no puppet. If the paladin had wanted to kill him, he would’ve jabbed those scissors right into his neck dobashes ago. He had no reason to be sitting here, trying to make him understand something he was still too exhausted to tackle just to get information out of him.

It was an interesting thing.

“And what makes you think I’m miserable?” Lotor asked lowly.

Shiro only grinned. “Why wouldn’t I think you’re miserable?” The smile only spread when Lotor developed one of his own, looking down almost shyly. “You want to know why I don’t think you’re like Zarkon?” He waited until yellowblue eyes met his own again, the bang hanging in front of one. “I was a prisoner of the Galra for a year, and it messed me up. I lost a few memories, can’t sleep when the ones I do remember come back to haunt me at night. They took my arm, and cut me up. That year brought me here, fighting for a universe of innocents. And ultimately, it ended up killing me. Bringing me back too. That’s a lot to handle.”

And it felt like the weight of the world at times. Even with Keith in Black, it still felt crushing. Maybe even more so, now that he had to find a new place in that universe he’d died for. Thinking about all of it, Shiro was suddenly filled with great respect for the Emperor of the Galra.

“And it was just a year. One simple year,” Shiro continued. “But you, Lotor? You’ve lived for _thousands_ of them, stuck in the same prison as I was, but carrying a heavy crown. I can’t imagine surviving for even one more day in that year under Zarkon. And here you are, still fighting him. Here you are, Emperor now even though you could’ve been free of that crown, one that’s only gotten a hell of a lot heavier for you. You’ve survived Zarkon longer than anyone under his tyranny, and yet you’ve still remained a decent, admirable man. The others are wary of you, and you’ve got to understand that. But they don’t know what we know, not really. I don’t even know how you’re still here, doing what you’re doing. But I do know you’re nothing like Zarkon, because I’ve faced him myself. I don’t see him in you. Not one bit.”

A heavy crown, Lotor mused as he looked away. One that had only gotten heavier. Those words spoke to him, even as he went on day by day with that weight he would never be able to shake off. One that would pull him down until there was nothing left. It was a curse, an obligation, a birthright.

A destiny.

It should’ve been Allura sitting here with him.

With that thought on his mind, he couldn’t stop his mouth when it opened and spoke words he would instantly regret.

“If only I heard those words from someone else,” he murmured, and the sorrow in his voice was unmistakable.

Shiro sent him a soft rueful smile. “She’s trying, you know. Before you, before the Coalition, it was just me and her making all the decisions. We led this gang, doing the best we could with limited knowledge and a bunch of kids who didn’t deserve a war. We got the hang of it, and expanded. We came to know each other, and I’m telling you… she’s trying.”

Like the ex Adam, Allura was a topic Lotor didn’t wish to discuss with anyone other than Allura herself. Their business when it came to their relationship was a private matter, even if they were in a less than desirable place concerning it.

But Shiro was somehow easy to talk to. Lotor saw him as the most reasonable, even before the clone had been activated and changed everything. Maybe he was right, he thought, staring a few cut strands of his once long hair. Maybe they knew each other on a deeper level, one that was left unspoken.

“Thank you for helping me today,” Lotor said, feeling each and every bandage the young man had smoothed onto his skin. “And thank you for telling me of your Adam, even though it saddens you still.”

He gave a nod. “You’re welcome. Time heals all wounds. You should remember that.”

“You earthlings say the most outlandish things.”

Shiro lifted a shoulder innocently. “Hey, we’re Allura’s family. As her boyfriend, you should study up.” Lotor froze, his eyes widening just a little. Shiro could see him holding his breath, and took pity on him. “That was a joke. You don’t have to define your relationship with her if you don’t want to. You’re still working things out.”

And if you don’t fix the devastating crack between you soon, Shiro thought woefully, the two of you won’t make it.

Lotor seemed to contemplate something, then gave what Shiro thought to be a royal grimace. “That is a horrible word. Boy friend,” he explained, almost spitting out the inferior earth title. “It sounds so… _juvenile_.”

Shiro laughed, smoky eyes bright. “No one really likes it. But _manfriend_ and _womanfriend_ are even worse.”

Lotor gave a soft smile. “I agree.”

Boy friend.

 _It’s what you call someone you’re in a relationship with, but you’re not married. An intimate, romantic relationship. A committed one. Obviously it’s the title for the males_.

Intimate and romantic. A committed relationship, without marriage. Someone to mate with before you sealed the union with blood and a lifelong pledge of devotion.

Were they committed to each other? Lotor wondered, taking a moment to think as Shiro cleaned up around him. Surely Allura returning to the rift to save him, risking her own life in the process, proved that they were. Was he supposed to be her romantic mate before marriage?

Was he Allura’s… boy friend?

Lotor sighed deeply and felt drained from these silly earthling translations. He didn’t know what he and Allura were to each other now. It seemed they were taking one small step at a time, probably at a pace that wasn’t completely beneficial, considering more than half of the people on her ship wanted him off of it. Her _family_ , as Shiro had put it.

He couldn’t think about it now. Not while he was still in pain and fighting to regain his strength. He could barely make it through a session of stitching his wounds back up without the need for sleep afterwards.

The doors to the infirmary whooshed open, and Keith sauntered through the door, his wolf at his side. Shiro smiled when he turned and saw him, then drew his white brows together when his eyes inspected the red and white armor.

“Hey, Keith,” Shiro said, closing a cabinet door and crossing his arms. “Going somewhere?”

Keith opened his mouth to answer, then closed it as his eyes traveled over the Prince’s newly cut hair. He blinked at the strange sight, then realized he probably seemed terribly rude. “Uh, yeah,” he finally answered, looking to Shiro. The wolf was stalking closer to Lotor, sniffing the air. “Kolivan needs a hand. He says he’s lost contact with a couple of Blades, and no matter what he does, he can’t reach them. Emergency protocols and everything. He suspects the Fires of Purification,” he then said straight to Lotor, who had instantly perked up at the mention of the Blade of Marmora. “Doesn’t know what they’re doing, but he should be able to contact his guys at all times. I’m going to check it out and Krolia’s gonna stay behind to help him and investigate. If… that’s okay with you,” he added softly to Lotor.

The Blade of Marmora belonged to Lotor now as Emperor. With Zarkon defeated and a new ruler to lead, Kolivan and his team were able to rejoin the Empire. If something was happening to them, something suspicious, Lotor needed to offer help.

“Contact Dayak,” Lotor told him, feeling those bandages again, but not so appreciatively now. While so weak, he could do nothing. “She will offer whatever assistance you require.”

Keith was still, then gave a quick nod.

“I expect updates,” Lotor added.

“You’ll have them. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“We should go with you,” Shiro said, moving closer to Keith. “We should stay together. We could need Voltron.”

Keith pulled him in for a hug, patted his back. “I can get back here in a pinch now, remember? I won’t be long. You guys need to keep this ship off the radar for the time being. The main priority now is keeping Lotor safe from Sendak and Haggar so we don’t undo all what we’ve built.”

Bad words. Real bad words, Keith decided and even flinched at them. For a moment, they really had ruined their alliance with the Empire when they left their leader to die. As Shiro squeezed him, Keith’s eyes flicked back to Lotor. He couldn’t seem to help it. The Emperor was only sitting on the table, looking down at the wolf who was gazing up at him with his bright yellow eyes. Keith felt a bit of panic. The last time the wolf had been around Lotor, he’d been ready to attack if given the command. There would be even more tension between Lotor and Voltron if the animal chomped on him.

Keith couldn’t look away when the wolf softly nudged Lotor’s hand with his snout. After a few tense ticks, Lotor placed his fingers under the wolf’s chin and scratched. The wolf’s eyes closed in bliss.

Shiro let him go, sending him off with a loving smile, one that also held a warning to be safe. He went back to his cleaning. Keith turned for the exit. Stopped.

“It wasn’t her fault,” Keith barked suddenly.

Everyone froze. Both Lotor and Shiro looked to Keith, saw his chin practically on his chest, his hands fisted at his sides. The bandages had been bad enough, Keith thought, feeling slight guilt pinch at his back. Lotor’s ruined hair had added to it, but seeing his wolf instantly forgive him, an alien canine Keith knew could sense such evil if it were apparent enough, had made him spit the words out awkwardly.

“Keith?” Shiro asked.

“It wasn’t her fault,” he repeated, spinning around and looking straight into Lotor’s eyes, his own dropping just a tad to study the new Altean markings on his face. “Allura didn’t want to leave you there. She wanted to get you, pull you out of the rift. She didn’t make the call to pull back. I did,” he muttered, taking a deep breath. The wolf leaned against his leg. “I told the team to leave you there. I had to think of them. I had to put them first, but she didn’t want to leave you. She was angry but…” He didn’t know how to finish that sentence, so he decided it was best to end it. “I just thought you should know that.”

_But we can’t just leave him!_

Even in anger, even in heartbreak and betrayal, Allura had wanted to go back after defeating him. And she hadn’t mentioned it, Lotor thought as he took in the boy’s confession.

They hadn’t discussed a lot of things.

Keith went quiet. When it became too much for him, he turned for the door, breezed through it with the wolf following close behind.

Did the young paladin’s confession make it easier to be on this ship? Lotor wondered, ignoring Shiro when he gazed over at him in concern. Or did it make it all worse?

Should it ease him in knowing Allura was only following orders, or should it worry him that she’d heeded it so easily, without a fight? Without even an attempt to rescue him with Voltron fully formed?

“Are you okay?” Shiro asked him softly.

Keith had commanded the team to leave him in the quintessence field. Shiro told him his withholding of important information had been a bad call that had placed him in his present weak state. The young boy Lance so obviously despised him. Romelle wanted him dead. Allura had chosen someone else over him, proving she’d never truly trusted him. Not when it mattered.

Did all the Paladins of Voltron still see Zarkon when they looked at him? Even with the purple white markings of Altea imprinted on his body?

Once again, Lotor thought the vital question. _What was he still doing here_?

Why was he enduring this when he could easily leave and return to his own people? His Empire?

_I will always come back for you. Tell me you believe it._

Lotor remembered her tears in the field as Allura fought to save his life. He remembered her desperation, her panic, her guilt. He’d said horrible things to her, had even attacked her at one point, but somewhere deep inside, a blinking light the last part of him uncorrupted, he watched her fight like images on a screen. That light had remained flickering for her, some small way of helping her as the quintessence infected his mind and body, ruining him for the Altean Princess.

Why was he still here?

He was here because that light was still shining for her. A light that beamed with the only happiness he’d ever known. As Lotor ignored Shiro’s question, as he remained quiet even when Shiro helped him off the table and escorted him to Allura’s bed for rest, Lotor felt the breath in his chest quicken. His heart clenched, his cuts flared, and the nightmare whispers called to him again once his head hit the pillow.

_Prince of the Rift. Prince of the Rift._

He had to try to keep that light burning bright.

It was easier to ignore it, and leave Allura forever.

 

* * *

 

 

Quintants aboard the Olkari ship passed, and Voltron had been called to defend.

Keith had returned with vital information regarding the silent Blades of Marmora when a distress signal only Krolia had picked up on summoned the Lions and their Paladins to action. Lotor ordered through Dayak a small fleet to fly with Voltron to the signal when Kolivan confirmed it was one of their own. The Galra leader of the Blade had hastily hopped in Black with Keith and Krolia, Lotor’s fleet equipped with stealth mode as a precaution for the investigation.

They discovered the signal had been nothing but a trap meant for Kolivan.

He’d only snatched the lives of two Blades, a third one hanging from the rafters after torture when they arrived, but Macidus, a former Druid of the witch desperate for her attention again, was quickly stopped by Voltron and their allies. He gave them a good fight, but nothing could stop the teamwork of the Black Paladin and his wolf, or the fury of a now grieving Kolivan who felt each and every death like a knife in the gut. Krolia had elected to stay behind with him to help.

Once all were safe and the injured Blade seen to, Allura instantly contacted Lotor to tell him of their victory. The fleet that had assisted Voltron would be congratulated by their Emperor as soon as he returned to the Empire.

After arriving back at the Olkari ship and leaving Blue to charge up in her hangar, Allura discarded her armor, heading straight for her chambers – and most importantly her bed – wearing only her black flight suit as the green lights shooting along the sides of the hallway guided her. She wanted rest, wanted her blankets and pillows, wanted to get out of this suit and into her nightgown and unpin her hair. Sleep still wasn’t coming easy. Not since their battle with Lotor had she been able to rest without some kind of disturbance.

Lotor slept in her bed now, and had done so since the day Shiro had tidied up his hair. Allura found it comforting to sleep with a warm body beside her, one she could hold or be held by in return. When one of them woke in the middle of the night cycle, there was always a hand to grab onto instead of waking up alone and seeking out comfort from a friend. Allura preferred it to sleeping by herself.

She wished sleeping wasn’t all they were doing in her bed.

When the thought came to her, she instantly shook her head to clear her mind of those impure thoughts. There were more important things for her to focus on than wondering why Lotor hadn’t touched her intimately, or why he didn’t really respond to her own wandering hands before he would stop them and wrap her arms around his neck instead, simply whispering _goodnight, Princess_. He didn’t even discard his nightclothes before sleep, which kept her own nightgown perfectly in place out of uncertainty.

Anything further than sleeping next to each other every night would come when it was supposed to. He obviously wasn’t ready, and she needed to make sure she was, as well. Rutting on the sheets wasn’t going to solve the issues between them. It wasn’t going to create trust and healing and commitment.

Yes, Allura thought, even giving herself a motivational nod as she stood outside her bedroom door. Take it slow. It will happen when it’s supposed to happen. Patience yields focus, that’s what Shiro always said. She then grimaced a little, because she was pretty sure that saying didn’t apply perfectly to her situation. But still. She could wait however long it took. Allura opened the door, walked inside as it closed behind her.

Her feet suddenly stopped working and her breath hitched.

Lotor was standing in front of a floor-length mirror, inspecting various points on his body with curious eyes as the mice played between his bare feet.

He was only wearing a pair of small black boxer briefs.

Allura’s left eye twitched a little, and all those private wishes for intimacy crashed into her like a battering ram, smushing her previous self-discipline.

Lotor didn’t seem to mind her sudden entrance at all, didn’t even get startled by it when his eyes flicked up to her in the mirror before returning to his inspections. The cuts along his body were almost completely healed up, only faintly there and no longer needing a bandage to protect them. His hair, much to the surprise of Coran and the Paladins, had grown quite drastically in the few quintants since Shiro had cut it. It was nowhere near the length as before, but now the ends reached the middle of his shoulders blades. His body was still a little too thin to his liking, but once he could get back to the training deck, that would soon change.

When he turned to inspect his back in the mirror, giving her his front, Allura swallowed when water started to pool in her mouth.

He hadn’t yet properly greeted her or questioned her inappropriate staring, and without the distraction, one corner of her mouth lifted into a lazy half grin. Her cheeks felt hot as her eyes continued to roam along his purple skin sprinkled with the Altean markings – from his ankles to his calves and thighs and further still – and she was now too aware that she was only wearing a thin flight suit. So easy to pull down the zipper and match him with such little clothing. Was this how other men felt when they looked at her?

Bright blue eyes on his legs, on those tight tiny shorts when he turned again, giving her his spine. Narrow hips she didn’t get to see often when he was wearing his armor, moving up his lower back before she would get to those wide shoulders…

Allura’s grin dropped, her eyes losing their shine and her face sobering up as the ticks went by. Her gaze focused on his back, on the middle of it, and the more she stared, the more she felt a troubled shock. One that pricked her heart with tiny needles, sinking in deep.

Lotor’s back was covered in scars.

Of course there would be scars, she tried to reason, staring at them intensely until the sight of them slowly stole her breath. Shiro was scarred, they all were from battle or deca-phoebs of service, and Lotor had lived longer than any of them. But something about the marks on his skin looked different. They seemed to congregate only on his back, a group of them, some thicker and some more jagged and deep and discolored. Even some of the Altean markings on his back that should match her own were deformed from the intensity of the scars. They didn’t look like the mandatory wounds that would come with war.

They looked like… a punishment.

How could she not have known?

“They don’t look like yours.”

Allura jumped a little at the sound of Lotor’s voice from the mirror, losing her concentration on the ruin of his back and feeling guilty she’d been staring so insensitively. Swallowing, she blinked and approached him closer, trying not to look at the scarring again. His words didn’t lessen her anxiety. “What… doesn’t look like mine?” she asked, almost in a squeak.

“The markings.”

She held her breath as she stared at him. Had he caught her staring? Apparently she couldn’t do anything to make him feel safe and comfortable on her ship. “Your…”

Lotor’s hand reached up to the purple white over his cheekbones, his eyes looking at the others scattered along his body. “I suppose it’s because I’m only half Altean.”

 _Oh_. Allura relaxed a little. The Altean marks, she told herself, taking a small breath. And not the horrible damage to his back. She composed herself, turning her eyes onto the other markings he was inspecting. The purple white was everywhere her own pink was, but like the ones on his face, they were all unlike her own and Coran’s. Alteans had marks all over their bodies, not just their cheeks, and usually they were all the same shape, no matter male or female. But whereas hers were more rounded arches in certain areas, Lotor’s were sharper, like the point of an arrow.  If she lined them both up next to each other, the marks were all accounted for; his upper arms, his back, his lower stomach, his sides. They were all there.

For the first time in his life, he was seeing them all.

“Most likely,” she finally answered. “Our markings usually match in shape. What separates us is the color, though some are born with the same hue who aren’t blood related, like Romelle and Coran. But yours are very unique. I’ve never seen them shaped this way.” And they were lovely, Allura thought, giving him an encouraging grin when he looked down at her. “You’re one of a kind. The first. Like… the first star in the sky that’s different from all the others, but somehow shines brighter. Or a rare flower some will only see once in a lifetime, and they remember it forever. So no, they don’t look like mine.” Crescents on her face, lightning bolts on his. Nothing could stop lightning. “They’re much more beautiful.”

His brow twitched, his eyes going soft in a way she hadn’t seen in a while. It seemed he couldn’t stop the small, bashful smile as he looked down and away from her, back to the newness on his skin he hadn’t had time to probably examine during his early recovery.

Allura cocked her head to the side as she stood next to him, looking into the mirror too. One of the mice started jumping on top of her boot, waving at the others still with Lotor. “Did you know the markings are sensitive to touch? More so than unmarked skin.”

Lotor rubbed at the arches on his upper arm under his shoulder. Where there was purple white, there was also a different sensitivity under his fingers, but one he wasn’t unfamiliar with. He just hadn’t known about his hidden Altean features that caused it. “Why is that?”

She lifted a shoulder. “It is just our biology. An enhanced sensation. If I touch you here,” she continued, placing a hand on his elbow, “it is a simple touch. Nothing special at all. But if I touch you here…” Allura placed her fingertips on the sharp marking on his lower back, above the briefs. She pressed firmly and traced the design, knowing he was experiencing the buzzing, and a delightful warmth deep under his skin. “Do you feel that?”

“Yes,” he whispered, his eyes brightening with fascination. “Is it the same for you?”

Allura nodded. “When Alteans are intimate, some focus their attention mainly on the markings because of the intensity they can generate from touch alone. And some don’t care for it either way. It’s preference really.” Her eyes watched the movement of her hand, fingers still touching the marking on his lower back. She knew she should stop; she didn’t want to make him uncomfortable after telling him something so private, but she couldn’t seem to stop. She just wanted the contact. Automatically, her hand slowly moved up, traveling the dip of his spine to get to the marking higher on his back, and touch that one too so he could feel it. It would feel good for him, she knew.

Her hand stopped, and she practically snatched it away once her fingers came in contact with those horrible scars.

Lotor’s eyes snapped onto her and spotted her sad frown. He remained quiet.

She didn’t want to be impolite and insensitive. She didn’t want to think she was simply _allowed_ to ask him about something so private, something that had obviously been so painful. But her eyes found the scars again, saw the brutality in each and every one. It was unlike anything she’d ever seen, even during the war with the Galra.

And she couldn’t stop the question that blurted from her mouth.

“What happened to you?” It couldn’t have been an accident. It couldn’t have been a fall. This was done by a cruel hand. “Who did this?”

The answer was obvious.

He kept quiet, and when she didn’t take her question back, Lotor softly answered her. Apparently she needed to know. Apparently some things couldn’t remain private, not when he was standing here like this. “Zarkon.”

How much more could she hurt him?

Allura was barely in control of herself, her eyes finding his back again. A disaster she couldn’t look away from. Not until she knew, and could hurt with him.

“Before I was exiled,” Lotor explained, his voice a soft hum and his eyes on the mice still playing at his feet. “It was his way of punishing me.”

Her fears were confirmed then, and they brought sorrow to her heart. “Do they hurt?”

“No.” They were numb, and the lack of feeling the ruined flesh was a blessing. There was only so much he could take. He couldn’t live with the lingering pain of old wounds after enduring the viciousness of them when first struck. Sometimes it was better to go numb. “Lashes to the back, and the number depended on the offence. It was always a private affair, just my father and I in his throne room. Even the witch was escorted out, and somehow it was worse that we were alone. I would go to my knees, bare my back to him. I had to.”

When he’d been a boy, he would cry, plead with his father not to strike him, he would do better. A few deca-phoebs later in adolescence would bring the fight, angry insults Lotor would spit at his father, his fangs bared after he would scream from the crack of the whip. And when he became a man, when he learned how to make pain work in his favor, Lotor had kneeled quietly and remained that way with every strike, his claws digging into his thighs as blood ran down his back, reopening already marred skin. At some point, he stopped jumping from the mighty sound of leather on flesh.

Somehow… Allura could hear it too. “How old were you the first time?”

It was torture to hear it. But she had to know.

His eyes flicked over to her quickly, then went back to his reflection. “Eight deca-phoebs.”

A little boy, a young Lotor. One who’d probably been so confused when his own father asked him to kneel and to stop the crying. One who would never deserve such a punishment, no matter the crime. Allura thought back to the rift, to her personal fight with Lotor as he raged on quintessence. With his mind infected and full of hatred for her, he’d taunted her with the idea that they would have a son he would come to despise, if only to punish her. No love, Lotor had decided, and absolutely no way for their son to earn it from him. An impossible task for the boy he would make sure would grow up lost and confused and incredibly lonely.

Allura had quickly realized that Lotor had only been describing the little boy he’d once been. One who belonged to no one.

And asked to kneel and keep quiet as the handle to a whip was raised behind him.

Her eyes filled as she stared at Lotor’s back, at the lashes spread out his entire life. Once again, she refused to allow her tears to fall down her cheeks. When it came to Lotor now, she would be as strong as she needed to be. No more tears, no more crying. Not for her Prince when she was trying so hard to make things right.

She couldn’t take a few of those lashes for him, but Allura knew she would if she could.

In the midst of the scarring, Allura found the Altean markings again, the ones deformed from the strikes and malformation of his skin in the area. He said they didn’t hurt, but could he feel anything at all? Lifting her hand, she slowly moved it to his back and placed two fingertips over the purple white mark. She’d snatched her hand away before, but she needed him to know that she would accept each and every inch of him, no matter the damage, no matter the difference. She pressed in, traced what she could.

Lotor didn’t react at all. Zarkon had taken the sensation away, a little piece of his half Altean son.

“When he struck me there, right over the spot you’re touching now,” Lotor said, unable to feel her but using the focus of her eyes, “I instantly passed out. I thought maybe my body was unable to handle the punishment after so long of enduring it, but I never knew I had markings there. Sensitive markings,” he corrected softly with a twitch of a rueful grin. “It was rare he would land on that exact spot, but the result was always the same. He was as clueless as I was, and thought me weak when I would fall unconscious. He would wait patiently for me to wake, watch quietly as I struggled to stand. Perhaps being unable to see these markings benefitted me, so he would not be given a target. But still… I can’t feel you there.”

Their markings were magical, a special trait amongst their race. And as she’d told him earlier, they were even used as pleasure points for intimacy or comfort. Allura couldn’t imagine life without her own, without the ability to _feel_ them. It would be like losing her eyes or her hands. Now one small piece of Lotor was gone.

As she continued in her somber musings, softly touching the mark Lotor couldn’t feel as he told her more private details about the man he’d slain, Allura’s heart suddenly stopped.

It ripped in two. Left her bloody and broken.

_You’re more like Zarkon than I could have ever imagined._

She would never forget her cruel words, but hearing them in her head now, knowing the anger she’d felt at the time, destroyed her all over again with her hand on the wounds Zarkon had inflicted on his son. His flesh and blood, his only child who should have been treated as a miracle baby. The knowledge stabbed her, over and over again until she was left a desperate mess on the inside, one incapable of rational thought. That desperation possessed her, was only enhanced with her hand on Lotor’s body. It took her over, consumed her, swallowed her up in one big gulp. She could fix this right here and now.

She could fix it.

Allura glanced down at the mice, one silver brow lifting as she reached into the psychic link she shared with the small animals. They immediately stopped their frolicking, sniffed the air as they listened to her demands.

_Go play with Pidge, little friends. Go now._

Lotor was fun, but the Green Paladin gave them more attention. Excited now, the mice scurried away, climbing the walls to the vents they could now navigate in their new home. Just the two of them now.

Allura would do anything to make him feel good. But he had to _feel_ it.

Lowering her hand, trailing her fingertips down his spine, she found the purple white marking of his lower back again, rubbed it firmly.

The precise contact made him shiver.

More possession, more desperation. Allura’s eyes darkened with it, made her driven to give, give, give. To offer him everything, and make him forget.

Make him forget those heartless words she wished she’d never spoken.

“Lotor,” she murmured, the silkiness of her voice instantly grabbing his attention. Allura moved in front of him, kept one hand on his lower back to gently rub the marking as the other reached for his neck. “Come here.”

He looked a little confused, but didn’t shy away from her touch. His yellowblue eyes focused on her face, leaning down closer to her when she guided him with her hand on the side of his neck. He made no further moves; no kiss, no touch of his own, but no objection either, like when they would lie in bed and she would try to pull him close.

He was close now, and wearing so little. The sight of his so bare had literally stopped her in her tracks.

Allura lifted her chin, puckered her lips and softly kissed the Altean shapes over his cheekbones that once glowed along with her own, marking them as chosen. She kissed his cheek, his jaw, watched his eyelids lower when she finally reached his lips, and pecked him there too. She kissed him again, more firmly this time, waiting for him to respond in the way she wanted. When he did, opening his mouth against her own, she felt the give in his body. Felt him sink into her with every warm rub at the small of his back. She removed her hand from it, wanted him to crave more of her touch as she held him close. Wanted him to ask her to keep touching it because that would mean he needed her. Her tongue found his, and she sighed against him.

This is what they needed, she told herself, shoving back those rational thoughts that were now so far away. This would help.

Finally, after what felt like forever, Lotor lifted his hands, held them in the air a bit awkwardly before carefully placing them on her waist.

She could’ve rejoiced. He wanted this. She would make him feel good, she thought again.

Anything. Anything.

_Please fix it._

The kiss grew deeper and wetter, much more intimate than anything they’d tried before. Her hands skimmed his chest and shoulders, his own not so bold just yet, but she did feel the press of his claws into her hips when she swiped her tongue along his bottom lip and arched her back so her breasts would rub against the purple white marks on his chest.

The intoxicating way he kissed her didn’t seem to match the uncertainty of his hands, or the fact that he wasn’t trying to undress her. Maybe he was just nervous, she thought distantly. Maybe he didn’t have the energy, and still wasn’t feeling like himself. She would find out.

_Make him feel good. Make him forget._

The intense desire to accomplish both goals drove her, so Allura was gentle when she coaxed him to step back, her hands caressing, her mouth nipping, her body an offering to him. He seemed to go willingly, without hesitation, when she nudged further still so his calves would find the edge of her bed. He was bigger than her and stronger, and could easily stop her if he didn’t want more. Lotor dropped down onto the bed, eyes on hers and licking at his lips as he watched her ease herself into his lap. His shoulders under her hands tensed up slightly.

Nervous or weak? Allura couldn’t bear it if it were anything else.

So, in her desperation to care for him, she refused to think about it.

His hands were on her backside now, just resting there instead of feeling the flesh of her the way she wanted him to. Allura tried to calm him, make him feel safe as she brushed his hair back from his face, softly ran a fingertip over the healing cut through his eyebrow.

A fist was around her heart, but she ignored that too.

“I want you,” she told him, her hands running down the length of his shortened white locks as she sat in his lap. “I can make you feel good, Lotor. I can take care of you. I can do all the work.”

There was the pinch of his claws again. This time she felt a tension in his thighs.

“I promise you’ll like it,” she whispered to him, kissing his cheek again, breathing against his ear as her fingers found more markings to rub and make him shudder from the sensation. “Can I?”

It was too long to hear the answer, and she should’ve known better. But it was the one she wanted. The one she was desperate for.

“Yes,” he said.

She could fix this.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The rating will change next chapter, so you've been warned. Remember, comments mean quicker updates ;)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Romelle fans, you have been warned. Also, the rating has changed.

She’d managed to coax him up the bed, continuing to straddle him as he eased back to the pillows, laying his head down on them as he stared up at her. Reddened scars from the quintessence field mixed with the purple white of his markings, a different body than he’d had before, but he was still exquisite to look at, especially with his white hair spread out over the silver of her bedding. Allura greedily drank in the sight of him underneath her.

“You’re beautiful,” she told him softly, her gaze wandering all over his form, from his stomach to his chest to his handsome face.

Lotor breathed out a small laugh, his cheeks under the Altean marks darkening. “Not as beautiful as you.”

His words fueled her, pulsing more heat inside her as her desperate need to satisfy him consumed her all over again, possessing her like a spirit. He wanted her, she told herself, just as much as she wanted him. The knowledge that he’d not touched her in bed all this time flew from her mind, along with the gentle pushing of his hands when she would try to touch him in return. All that mattered was that he was allowing it now. He’d given consent, and she was prepared to take full advantage of it.

Men liked sex. They accepted it happily in any form; as newfound peace after an argument, a gesture of romance, a declaration of love, and maybe even something to pass the time. It could be used in so many ways, and although Allura had reasoned with herself before walking into this room that she would wait patiently, she knew she could use it now. Not in a troubling way, like tricking him. Obviously he wouldn’t be where he was, under her one strip of cloth away from being completely naked, if he didn’t want her. Men liked sex. She could use it as a tool to cool whatever burning fire was still sizzling between them, threatening to engulf them in a devastating inferno that would torch everything they had between them. Everything that had been momentarily destroyed before little bits of their relationship had crawled from the ashes.

He would like it. She would make sure of it. She would pleasure him, and watch him come. He deserved it, and would feel much better after.

The desperation increased once again, under a dark spell and taken by it completely. Her movements barely felt like her own, but no longer could she stand the tension between them. No longer could she live with the nasty words she’d given him before he’d snapped.

Allura placed her hands on either side of his head, leaned down for his lips again. She put everything she had into the kiss, the wettest, deepest kiss she could muster. As her mouth opened wide against his, swallowing his surprised inhale of breath, she made sure to press her pelvis against his, right over those tight boxer briefs. Men liked rubbing, she thought, adding to the list, little checks that would ensure a calming air between them. Lotor was tall, long Galra legs reaching almost to the edge of her bed, but she was tall enough to rub herself over him as she kissed him. She would make him hard, bring him to the edge, and let him collapse in pleasure that would soothe all those aches and pains in body and heart.

Their lips smacked apart when she pulled back, making him groan and stare at her as she grinned with sparkling, pleased eyes. He was still tense under her, his brow pinched as he seemed to concentrate on the movement of her hips. His hands were on her waist, grip sinking in deeper with every brush of her pelvis. He was taking deep breaths, trying to sigh them out, but he didn’t seem to want to touch her anywhere else.

She would just have to get him to relax some more.

Allura pecked his lips, then the shapes over his cheeks, kissing her way down his neck and nipping at him there. She would taste all his new markings and show him firsthand how sensitive they could be for an Altean. They’d always been on his body, but there had never been a focused touch on them meant for pleasure. As she kissed and sucked at the purple white marks, she felt his hands run along the fabric of her black flight suit.

“Do you feel it?” she asked, keeping her eyes on his as her tongue slithered out and dragged the tip slowly over a mark on his stomach. She felt the warmth generated there from stimulation.

“I do,” he whispered, swallowing some as her tongue flicked out again. “It’s different. Knowing where they all are and watching you…”

Allura smiled and sat back up, still straddling him. “Let me show you mine.”

During the time she’d sat as his bedside as he slept off the intense purging of too much quintessence, Allura had discovered through the chattering of Hunk and Pidge that some of the team thought she’d slept with Lotor in the Sincline ship while gathering samples in the rift. She’d ignored the rumors and allowed them to think whatever they wanted, knowing well at the time that although they _hadn’t_ been intimate, she’d absolutely wanted to while basking in the euphoria of the purest quintessence. Lotor’s energy had drifted over to her, burrowed inside her until she’d started to tremble, and the smoothness of his voice drenched her like the oozing of honey cascading down her body. At one point she’d caught his eye when he’d glanced back to check on her, and Allura could remember seeing that same yearning in his brightened gaze.

But nothing had happened between them. When he’d kissed her after their flight, she could remember devising a plan to continue somewhere private.

And then everything had fallen apart right after her first taste of him.

Nothing would stop her now, she vowed, and this would be the first time he would see her body. Allura reached for the zipper to the black flight suit at her throat, eased it down slowly and baring more of her brown skin to him. First her collarbone, then her breasts, her stomach. She didn’t remove the flight suit but she did open it a little, allowing him to see her pretty pink markings in the same places as his own.

Allura waited for him to make a move, but all he did was stare at her exposed body, specifically the petal pink cups of her brassiere that held her breasts, and still continued with that deep and slow breathing.

_Fix it. Fix it. Fix it._

She _could_.

He would like it. She would make sure of it.

Her mouth found his neck again, sucking at the skin, nibbling there too as she picked up his hands and set them on her backside. Maybe he was nervous to touch her, but she would show him he could have whatever he wanted. Something rolled in her stomach when his hands just simply rested on the cheeks of her backside without fully groping them, a roll that hurt, that should’ve worried her. Something to be considered.

She ignored it, and went back to kissing him. Willing him desperately to respond.

Just relax, Lotor told himself, trying to force it with steady breaths that didn’t feel or sound so steady at all. It was hard to deny her and she looked incredible, everything he’d ever wanted. But while staring up at her like a fool, lying there as she nipped at his skin, kissed his mouth, and moved her hips in a way he knew was trying to harden him, Lotor began to feel a very familiar tightening in his chest, one that was closing in around his lungs and pressing in on his heart. He didn’t want to move his hands much in fear that they would start to shake, and he could feel the ever so slight tremble deep within his muscles that he’d mastered at hiding. He could also feel the strange cool/hot of sweat that threatened to seep out of his skin if he didn’t focus on keeping it at bay.

No, he thought, trying to sink into her, trying to feel the arousal that _should_ come so easily with a beautiful woman on top of him. Allura needed to be close to him; she so obviously wanted him too when she would try to cuddle up to him at night. Maybe she was acting so boldly now because of the discovery of the scarring on his back put there by his father’s hand, a strange mixture of pity and guilt and the need to show him she wanted more intimacy. He could give her that connection if she was so craving it. He could fight the tremors. The… rising discomfort.

_An intimate, romantic relationship._ That’s what Shiro had told him, what it meant to be someone’s… boy friend. Everyone on this ship assumed that was what he was to Allura now. Her intimate, romantic, and committed partner before marriage.

_I think you’re taking on the wrong kind of misery_.

More words from Shiro, ones Lotor realized had etched themselves into his brain and echoed in his mind. Ones that should be relaxing him now. Ones he really needed to focus on to… get through this.

_Being in love means doing one miserable thing after the next._

He must be in love then.

He felt like he was dying.

Allura sat up again after another deep kiss, and Lotor took the opportunity to calm himself down without her lying against him and able to feel the very odd panic that was only getting worse by the dobash. Having a woman on top of him this way was something he usually didn’t allow. It had always made him feel… exposed. Helpless. Vulnerable.

_Miserable._

“Are you all right?” Allura asked him, her expression not one of concern, but another type of worry that he would give her the answer she didn’t want to hear.

Giving it more time because he had to relax at some point, he gave her a small nod. “Yes,” he lied.

She smiled down at him, and if Lotor hadn’t been so focused on his own unwanted reactions, he would’ve seen in her eyes that something was wrong.

With both of them.

“May I touch you?” she asked softly, reaching back and lightly dragging the tips of her fingers over the top of the briefs. “Here?”

Men liked a willing hand between their legs. Another check on her list.

He wasn’t hard yet, and there were numerous energies to focus on – like the caving of his chest – to feel any shame about it. Of course she would be able to remedy that with her generous hand. “Yes, Allura.”

Feeling victorious – _please him, please him, fix it_ – she situated herself so she could focus her attentions on his cock while still sitting atop him. She wanted to watch her hand rub him to arousal, to watch his erection grow under the fabric before she would pull it away and he would beg her to ride him. She _wanted_ that, saw it in her mind and willed it into existence. Allura reached between his legs, felt the softness of him, the shape of him through the briefs. Perhaps, after she made him swell up, she would take him into her mouth and pleasure him that way. That was another act men liked, wasn’t it? The more she pleased him, the happier he would become.

And if Lotor was happy… he would forgive her. And forget everything she’d done.

He was still pretty big for being soft, she discovered, probing the length of him, listening to his breathing. Teasing him like this a little would make it feel better for him when she finally reached into the cloth for his cock. She familiarized herself with his shape, learning the bends and bows of his body, until she used her palm to rub him firmly.

He could do this, Lotor argued with himself as he tried to sink into the bed under his back. He could relax, get hard for her, pleasure her as much as he was capable of doing with still so little energy. He just had to focus on her hand rubbing at his cock, and it would happen any tick now. Forcing out a deep, albeit shaky, breath, he eased his head into the pillow under it, dropped his arms onto the sheets, closed his eyes and attempted to concentrate on the movement of her palm. Any permitted hand between his legs couldn’t feel anything but nice, and it did feel nice. Didn’t it?

It wasn’t long until he felt like he couldn’t breathe with his eyes closed and her body sitting on him with his most fragile appendage in her hand. Lotor’s eyes snapped open, instantly found her and saw the drive in her own as she stared at his cock, willing for it to respond to her. He found his claws now gripping the sheets, his heart pounding in his chest so hard it was actually giving him pain.

Why was this happening? Why couldn’t he relax?

_Think of what we experienced in the quintessence field_.

Lotor could only stare up at the ceiling as his tightening claws ripped a few holes into the sheets. His mind went blank as he suffered all over again.

Allura clenched her teeth together, trying to stop the trembling in her chin as she watched the continuous back and forth of her hand, her useless, useless hand that wasn’t seeming to be doing a good job of hardening him at all. Her eyes strained, as if her gaze alone could will her desires, but it wasn’t working, nothing was working. Her desperation, that spirit controlling her, pushed her on, screamed at her to _fix it, fix it now_. They couldn’t go on like this, not with so many unresolved issues between them tearing them further and further apart. She wanted Lotor; she’d discovered quickly after abandoning him that she couldn’t bear to live without him. She _loved_ him.

_Then open your mouth and tell him that, you fool._

But she couldn’t. She couldn’t even give him an erection. Her teeth were clattering in her mouth now, her eyes wide and filling with more and more devastation. But she couldn’t give up now, she had to keep trying. In a desperate move, Allura snatched one of his wrists, pulled it from the sheets and ignored the tension in his limb that instantly decreased as soon as she’d grabbed it, allowing her to move him like a doll. She placed his palm on one of her breasts over the pink brassiere, pressing it on her flesh with the hope that it would help him along. His hand just rested there, lifeless. And his cock still wasn’t getting hard.

_No, no, no. Please_.

He couldn’t breathe, his lungs were straining for air, his heart was going to break his ribs. He tried to hide it, tried so very hard, but now he was shaking. Now his head was pounding. Lotor couldn’t stop it, no matter how hard he fought against it. He was suffering like this. He was dying.

He was… miserable.

“Allura, stop!”

Lotor abruptly sat up, grabbed her waist and pulled her away from her ministrations. His frantic expression softened when he registered her gasp and jolt, the intense and sad confusion in her desperate eyes. He hadn’t meant to startle her and he could kill himself from that look on her face now… but he’d reached a limit. He couldn’t continue.

“Stop,” he whispered to her this time, gently easing her off and setting her next to him. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I can’t.”

Allura just sat there, watching silently as he swung his legs to the edge of the bed, giving her his scarred back and trying to catch his breath as he stared down at his lap. Whatever possession, whatever desperation had taken her before, flew off of her as if blown away by a wind, clearing her eyes and mind. Concern took its place, and an odd mortification at her own actions.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, the first words she could muster.

Lotor didn’t answer her, just kept his eyes on the floor as he tried to calm himself down now that he wasn’t being pressed into the bed. It was helping, and he was feeling better by the tick, although very drained and weak. Perhaps intimacy after what he’d been through wasn’t such a good idea after all.

Or perhaps that was a lie, and all he needed to do was open his mouth and talk to her.

But he couldn’t seem to manage that either.

“I…” he began, wondering how to finish the sentence. How best to spare her pain. He couldn’t stand it if he hurt her again. “I can’t.”

Allura wanted to embrace him, but the way he’d reacted before told her that perhaps he needed some space. Swallowing, she slowly crawled to the edge of the bed to sit next to him. She didn’t have to touch him, but she could give him support. “You can’t? I thought you wanted to.”

“I do,” he told her quickly, looking at her and willing for her to believe it. She must know he really _did_ want to sleep with her. His frozen body and whirlwind of a mind had unfortunately had other plans. “But I… can’t.”

Oh, Allura thought, following his regretful gaze when it found his lap again and the erection that wasn’t there. Maybe there was still a small trace of the quintessence infection lingering inside him, something affecting his body’s natural responses. She wanted, more than anything, to believe that.

But the alchemy that had saved him in the rift was a great power.

She couldn’t stop the question blurting from her mouth.

“Is it me?”

“No,” Lotor answered hastily, even reaching for her hand and holding it. “Stars, no. I want you, Allura. You must know that.” But her hopeless expression wasn’t convincing him that she did. The frown on her face tore him apart, so he lifted her fingers to his lips to kiss them. “It must be because I still don’t… feel like myself. I don’t think I’m ready.”

“Oh,” she murmured, then instantly perked right up, smiling at him now with understanding. “Well that’s quite alright. We’ll just try again another time.” It was quiet as they sat next to each other, and even after what just occurred, it was comfortable. She spotted his eyes flick over to her breasts still exposed before moving away quickly. Allura zipped up her flight suit to conceal them and help with any discomfort he could still be feeling. “I think it’s time for you to eat something. We need to keep your strength up. Why don’t I ask Hunk to prepare you some soup?”

Whatever distracted her. Whatever made her feel useful so he wouldn’t feel so miserable from disappointing her. “That would be fine,” he said softly.

Allura leaned up to kiss his cheek, then rose from the bed to head for the door. “I’ll be back shortly. Try to rest in the meantime.”

“Yes, Allura.”

She was cool and composed as she made her way out, closed the door behind herself.

Then collapsed against it, covering her mouth with her hand as her eyes instantly filled up with frustrated and heartbroken tears.

How could she mess up so remarkably? How could she do that to him, knowing he wasn’t ready, feeling his apprehension, seeing with her own two eyes how uncomfortable he was? What had possessed her to think that after everything they’d been through, everything they were still resolving and working towards, giving him sex would make things right? She should’ve known in the way he didn’t touch her at night, in the nerves she could sense inside him that she’d stubbornly ignored. All because she wanted to clear the air, to give him pleasure instead of pain.

To get rid of the guilt she still felt tearing her apart.

But she had to remain strong, Allura told herself, sniffing back her tears so they wouldn’t fall down her cheeks and remembering her vow to stop the useless crying when it came to her situation with Lotor. It was her fault he was like this, and she had to keep on caring for him. She was the reason why he was weakened, why he was stuck on her ship regaining his strength when he _should_ be with his people, commanding his Empire and protecting them, teaching them a new way of life.

The only thing to do now was to make him comfortable and keep him safe.

So, after she cooled off, Allura patted her face, and went to get him some soup.

Back in the silence of the bedroom, Lotor stared down at the floor, a blank expression as he settled into the quiet, something he hadn’t realized he was desperate for. Allura was now gone fetching him food – an excuse, he wasn’t at all hungry – and for some reason the mice had scurried off right before she’d started kissing him. He tried to make sense of his reaction, or lack thereof. Maybe he really wasn’t ready. He’d been telling her the truth when he’d said he still didn’t feel all there.

He wanted Allura. That was another truth. He loved her.

Didn’t he?

He’d told her so in the rift, when she’d returned for him. He’d told her he loved her, that he felt like she was his redemption from a very difficult and very long life of doing the things most people didn’t have the strength to do. When he’d worked alongside her, he’d felt free. When they’d gone to Oriande, he’d finally felt accomplished and complete. Each and every time they’d touched, he had felt a comfort he’d never known.

All of those revelations felt like they’d suddenly… vanished. And he didn’t know how to get them back.

Once again, he was lost.

Quintessence? he questioned then, trying to find an explanation, one that didn’t hurt his heart. He’d been exposed since the womb. Perhaps he was experiencing some kind of residual symptom of overexposure, one he was having a hard time ridding himself of. Lotor then looked down at his lap. He could know for sure if it was something internally that was affecting him and keeping him from reacting. No one was around, he was all alone. His back was to the door.

Lotor reached inside the briefs and palmed his cock, mimicking the same movements as Allura earlier. After a few moments, he touched himself in a familiar way, one he knew he liked because he was the one in control. He stroked himself in the way he preferred, wrapping his hand around his cock and pumping his fist. He emptied his mind, closed his eyes, focused only on his own hand and the pleasure it could give, even if it wasn’t Allura’s body. He breathed in the scent of female around him, her clothes, her sheets, her sweet lingering presence.

If it was something wrong with _him_ , then he still wouldn’t get hard. And if it wasn’t him…

Lotor opened his eyes, lifted a brow and frowned at the discovery. His cock was hard in his hand, ready for release.

_It wasn’t him._

He simply stared down at his erection, the traitorous response that hadn’t shown up when he’d needed it to. He couldn’t even be angry with himself. The only emotion he felt was that persistent sadness that couldn’t seem to leave him, and a very odd sense of _knowing_. And because he didn’t like the results at all even though he knew it would feel better to continue, Lotor ignored his erection, and decided to be rid of it with a cold gust in the shower instead of an orgasm.

He rose from the bed, walked a bit uncomfortably to Allura’s bathing chambers, wanting to remove any evidence before she returned. It would kill him to see that sad disappointment on her face again. That heartbreak.

Is this what their life would be like with each other now? Would they constantly have to tip toe around the other as they suffered, neither uttering a word because perhaps too many words had been spoken in the rift?

As the cold shower ran, Lotor looked up into the mirror.

The reflection he saw was horrid, a broken, bleeding man with wild eyes oozing glowing purple quintessence. The faint pupils he could see were quivering in madness, his claws covered in his own blood and his hair ripped from his scalp. The reflection was grinning at him, unstable and ready for more flesh to tear apart.

_Prince of the Rift_ it said to him. His own voice in his head. The Altean marks on his weathered and sunken face were glowing that same devastating purple as they cut down his cheeks, just like the witch’s face.

_The princess doesn’t love you. You are the abomination._

Lotor only stared at his reflection. He’d seen it before, heard those damning whispers before too. His own voice, his own face. A madness that had taken him completely.

He simply turned away from it, and hopped in the shower.

 

* * *

 

 

They didn’t speak of the incident when she returned. He managed a few spoonful’s of the soup she brought him, eating it only because she’d done the chore and was watching him with a strange hope in her eyes, as if more nourishment would cure whatever it was keeping them stuck from progressing their relationship. He ended up persuading her into sharing the bowl with him by sweetly offering her some, and it was how he got it to empty. Allura had eaten most of it.

Yet another omission between them, even when it concerned soup. Somehow he couldn’t just _tell_ her he didn’t want to eat it. He’d gotten her to finish the contents herself.

Was this the misery Shiro wanted to see in him?

Allura didn’t reach for him when the Olkari ship signaled for the night cycle, sending everyone off to bed. Under the covers, barely a foot apart, they kept their backs to each other, listening to the sound of the other’s breathing as they waited to fall asleep. With each passing night, the shadows under his eyes darkened and the whispers of the rift begged him for attention he wouldn’t give.

With each passing night, Allura told herself the next day would be _the day_. The important day she’d been putting off.

The day she would call for her team, and set things right.

She couldn’t seem to manage the task with Lotor, but she could do so with the Paladins and Coran.

Allura waited until Lotor fell asleep during the day cycle, when exhaustion would claim him from an unsettling night and force his eyes shut. There were things she had to say to her team, and she didn’t want him walking in on a sensitive moment he could easily take out of context.

Shiro, Keith, Hunk, Pidge, Lance, and Coran. All of them answered her request to meet her on the bridge of the ship, the stars blasting by all around them as Team Voltron fulfilled their promise to the universe by keeping the Galra Emperor safe while he recovered. In her pink and white flight suit and her hair left down her back, Allura addressed them all.

“I’ve brought you all here to clear the air,” she began, looking at each of them in their street clothes, the little details that made them so different from each other. Pidge’s short stature compared to Hunk’s larger frame. Shiro’s white hair from the magic of the power of Oriande. Keith’s scarred face with a wolf sitting loyally at his side. And Lance, she thought, her gaze lingering a little longer on him. Lance only stared at the floor with eyes full of a struggle she couldn’t be part of. “I understand that bringing Lotor back here to our new ship has made some of you… or possibly all of you,” she added softly, “uncomfortable. I also understand that leaving the team without a word to return for him in the rift was a selfish act. I should have explained what I planned to do, and listened to your thoughts. I should’ve told you most of all,” she said to Coran, frowning some.

“You should have,” he answered with a nod and a small grin, then he let it fall. “Princess, you don’t have to—”

“I do,” she interrupted, holding up a hand to stop him. “We could have all died. We almost did multiple times. I blame myself for putting you all in danger that day.”

Shiro shook his head. “Allura.”

“Some of you have been gracious,” she continued, looking at Keith, looking at Coran. “Some of you are innocent,” she said right to Shiro. “And some of you have been distant and wary. You have every right to feel that way. The truth is, Lotor attacked us. And when I made the decision to rescue him, I didn’t stop to think of your feelings. I could only focus on my own, and how vastly I had mishandled the situation from every angle. I’ve called you here to apologize, and to listen to each and every one of your concerns.” She stopped, waited. When no one spoke up, her eyes found Pidge. “I know you have a comment,” she said to her with a grin, trying to calm the air. “Tell me.”

The young girl may have been the genius child of more genius’s, but she was still a child when one of her feet kicked out, shuffling along the floor. Other than when they were called to their Lions for work, Allura had not had a chance to talk to the green paladin of Voltron.

“I mean, I don’t know,” Pidge muttered, fiddling with her glasses to do something with her hands. “It’s been a big adjustment. We lost the Castle ship because of our fight with Lotor and now he seems to be living with us on our new home. It’s like… we have to pretend the fight and that whole colony business didn’t happen. But it _did_ happen, and no one’s talking about it.”

“It’s weird,” Hunk chimed in, standing next to Pidge to help his friend along. “It’s awkward. Do we go back to the way things were or should we be watching our backs? Because, you know, we got Voltron Lions here and a Galra Emperor who wasn’t liking us very much not too long ago. The last one was trying to kidnap Black.”

“Lotor’s actions were not his own,” Allura said. “He’s been recovering from overexposure.”

“Yeah, I get that, I do. I mean, we’re all still alive so it’s not like he’s crazy anymore. But, Allura… you’re sleeping with the guy now. It’s awkward.”

Not awkward because of the intimacy, even though none of that was transpiring between her and Lotor. Awkward because the man who attacked them was now sleeping in her bed when he absolutely didn’t have to. There were plenty of places for him to recover, like the clinical setting of the infirmary.

No matter what position she took on the team, Allura realized that they were still counting on her to help them through this unknown universe. Perhaps all of them were, though they’d never say it.

And now the man who’d called Voltron his enemy was lying in her arms at night.

“We’re worried about you,” Pidge suddenly spoke up. “Hunk’s right, it’s awkward. But we just… don’t want you to get hurt again. It’s hard to sleep when we’re all wondering if we’ll still see your face in the morning.”

Allura didn’t know how much more her heart could take. So it was her own safety they were concerned for. Along with the pain came a great love for her new family. It washed over her, and gave her a little more strength to go on.

“I know I can’t stop you from worrying, but I assure you I’m safe. Time will tell,” she told the two. When it seemed they had nothing more to add, Allura found Lance again. His hands were shoved in his pockets and he looked as if time was wasting. A sensitive one, she knew. “And you, Lance? Do you have anything you’d like to say?”

He was quiet for a few moments, seeming to contemplate a response. Dread found her when he only shrugged a shoulder and muttered, “You already know how I feel about all this.”

_I’m not just uncomfortable, Allura._

He wouldn’t look at her. Just stared down at the floor, wanting to flee the room from this nonsense but not wanting to seem like a child at the same time. Conflicted, was what he was. So conflicted, and angry.

_I’m kinda pissed off about it_.

And so very cold.

“I think Allura’s right and we all need some time?” Pidge offered, more of a question as she glanced around at everyone else, lingering on Lance a little longer and frowning. “Maybe we need some space too, to regroup. Maybe… we should drop Lotor off with the Galra.”

Shiro crossed his arms. “We can’t do that. Haggar and Sendak are still at large. We also don’t know the whereabouts of his former generals, and for all we know, they could be out for vengeance. If something happens to Lotor in his present weakened state, then the Empire could fall to someone who prefers Zarkon’s reign of tyranny over Lotor’s reign of peace.”

“But Dayak’s there,” Hunk said. “She can take care of him, she’s used to it. Why does it have to be us?”

“We left him in the rift, Hunk,” Keith reminded him, setting a hand on the wolf’s head.

“Oh… right.”

“If Lotor’s presence on this ship is affecting you all in such a way, then perhaps he should be separated from the team. But I will go with him.”

All eyes turned to Allura, even Lance’s. Everyone stared at her, and Pidge automatically started shaking her head in defiance.

Allura took a breath before she continued. “I don’t mean that as a threat, or a punishment. I want everyone here to be comfortable, and I want _no one_ to be fearful for their lives or my own. I lost my head for a moment after the discovery of the colony, but I’m not in danger. I survived the rift, and Lotor’s state inside it. If removing Lotor from the ship will put you all at ease, then that is what I will do. But I will not leave him, not again.”

“You’re not going anywhere,” Shiro said sternly.

“Then I’m going with you,” Coran told her, plain and simple. “You left for him once without telling me, and I’ll be damned if I let you do it again.”

“She’s not going anywhere,” Shiro repeated, raising the volume of his voice. “We’re staying together.”

“How am I supposed to fix this then, Shiro?” Allura asked him. “I know you all don’t understand, but I can’t just drop him off with the Galra all by himself. I can’t leave him, I just _can’t_. He’s…”

_Everything to me._

But she couldn’t say it. She couldn’t even tell Lotor.

“We can’t split up,” Pidge said, her eyes behind the glasses wide with worry, and slight aggravation “The only way we work is if we’re all together. Why does one of us always have to be _gone_?”

“She’s right,” Keith added. “Without you, Allura, there’s no one to fly Blue. Without Blue, there’s no Voltron.”

“Lotor is more important than Voltron,” she argued.

“Is he?” Lance broke in, finally adding his voice. He was staring at her as if she’d gone just as insane as her _boyfriend_. “Is he really? So you’ll completely ditch the defender of the universe for some guy?”

“Lance,” Shiro muttered in warning.

“Some _guy_?” Allura asked, trying to keep the offense out of her voice, but failing.

“The entire universe is looking to us to save them,” Lance continued. “And before you use words like _coalition_ and _alliance_ , you should remember that the only reason why those two things exist is because of _us_. Because of Voltron. And you want to leave us without a Lion.”

_We have to do what’s right for our people, even if it means great sacrifice._

What was the right choice? she wondered, wishing her father was here instead of only a voice in her head. Lotor was worthy of a great sacrifice on her part because he had already sacrificed so much for the people she should’ve been around to protect from Zarkon. With all their eyes on her, waiting for an answer, Allura felt as if she was being torn apart.

Did she depart the ship with Lotor to keep him safe from his enemies and leave the Paladins incapable of forming Voltron, or did she stay to pilot Blue and watch Lotor walk back into an unstable Empire all alone?  

She’d promised Lotor she would never leave him ever again. Her heart was unable to do it a second time, and survive it.

“Why are we even _talking_ about this?” Lance asked, his head whipping around as if he was the only one making any sense. “Why, Allura?”

Because, she thought, already saying goodbye to Blue in her heart. At least for a little while.

_Because I love him. I love Lotor_.

And he was it for her.

“What kind of family _is_ this?”

Allura didn’t even bother turning around to look at Romelle, who breezed right onto the bridge in a flurry of pink and blue and yellow pigtails. There was an odd disgust in her voice as she entered the group, staring at them all with hands on her hips. She seemed to wait for an answer from _someone_ , and when no one offered one, she continued on.

“What kind of squadron are all of you? I spend the last few quintants learning of the legend of Voltron, reading about all of your accomplishments in the war with the Galra, and I find you in here arguing because _you_ want to leave it?” Her angry pink eyes found Allura, a brow lifted in disapproval. “And for a monster! What kind of a princess are you?”

Before anyone else could jump in, Coran stepped forward, arms crossed and eyes deadly narrowed as he glared at Romelle. “I’ll have you mind your tongue, miss.”

Since meeting her, Allura had not had the chance to properly sit down with her fellow Altean woman. Of course she was feeling flustered and out of place. Allura already knew she felt betrayed once she brought Lotor back, the man Romelle accused of horrible crimes. Allura focused on sympathy, brought it forward inside her as she set a hand on Coran’s shoulder to steady him.

“I can only imagine what you must be feeling,” Allura offered, attempting to reason because although Romelle didn’t see her as royalty, she still absolutely was to the Alteans.

“You don’t need to imagine it. Your entire planet was destroyed by Lotor’s kind, and yet you’ve cozied yourself up to him as if he has every right to be aboard this ship, breathing your air and utilizing your supplies. I’ve told you, all of you, what he’s done. I’ve shown you proof,” she added, looking straight at Keith. “He even admitted it. And for a moment, one small moment, you believed me. Now he’s here, with _my_ family’s blood on his horrid claws.”

“Look,” Shiro began. “I think we all need to calm down. Allura, you can’t leave. We’ll work something else out so _everyone_ feels safe and comfortable.”

“I will _never_ feel safe or comfortable on this ship as long as that Galran _psychopath_ is still on it.”

He eyed Romelle as she raged, but like Allura, Shiro only wanted peace amongst the group. The Altean may have come into their circle late, but she was still here, still part of it. She’d still suffered trauma from the loss of her family. And for Coran and Allura, Shiro tried to work with her. “I’ve talked with Emperor Lotor myself. Mistakes were made on both sides, but I vouch for him. We need to keep on working together.”

Romelle only winced with more disgust. “You dare use that barbaric title? If I recall, _you_ do not get a say because you were not truly here to experience all of Lotor’s lies, all of his manipulations, and all of the trouble he’s caused. _You_ are not even a paladin. What is your word to me?”

The wolf growled at Keith’s side as his master uttered, “Watch it, lady.”

Shiro placed a hand on Keith’s shoulder as Pidge groaned, “I don’t like this.”

“Oh, this is what you don’t like, little one?” Romelle asked her, angry desperation now laced heavily in her voice. “This little spat here? A life draining madman rests aboard this ship and your _princess_ is too bewitched by him to do anything about it. He has killed thousands of Alteans. The deaths of the colony are on _your_ shoulders,” she said straight to Allura, who remained silent. “Have you forgotten about the colony? Have you even asked him about it since you foolishly rescued him from his rightful death?”

It was torture to watch everyone look at her again, even Coran. Had they assumed she’d interrogated Lotor about the Alteans he’d hidden away and approved of his explanation? Perhaps that would have been the smart thing to do after he’d regained enough energy to tell his story. But her broken heart had yearned for him, and had taken priority over just about everything. 

_Emotion always trounced reason_. She’d come to learn that about herself, and needed to work on fixing it.

Because right now she felt fury bubbling inside her chest with each and every nasty word coming out of Romelle’s mouth.

“Rushing to conclusions is what caused this catastrophe,” Allura told her, told all of them. “I have not forgotten about the colony or my missing people, and I have yet to be given an explanation. I’ve decided to wait until he’s ready to talk about it.”

“Oh!” Romelle clapped her hands together, smiling brightly before it fell and the storm raged on. “I suppose I should be the one to tell you _yet again_ the truth about the man you’ve decided to be so very patient with. That monster has ruined my life and taken the lives of all my family and all my friends. He is a witch, just like his awful mother. Those Altean marks on his face may blind you but they do _not_ blind me to his true intentions. His mad lust for power has been disguised as a spell, and _you_ , Allura, are the one stupidly falling for it.”

“That is quite enough,” Coran snapped, eyes furious now as he stepped in front of Allura to shield her. “You will not speak with such disrespect to her. She is your princess.”

“Princess? To me?” Romelle asked, setting her hands on her chest. “I was not given the _chance_ to know Princess Allura. All I could do was wait until my time was up and I was harvested by that murderous half-breed!”

“This murderous half-breed can hear all of you.”

Romelle’s appearance on the bridge may not have surprised Allura, but she spun around at the newest voice in the group to see Lotor standing in the entrance. The color of his skin and purple white Altean marks on his face stood out against the baggy black of his clothing – more items borrowed from Shiro – and his yellowblue eyes were emotionless as he studied the meeting purposely meant to be composed without him.

Allura held her breath, clenching her teeth together so she wouldn’t blatantly frown. She was mortified as Lotor walked calmly onto the bridge, entering the fray with not a shred of uncertainty.

Obviously it was something he was used to.

The Paladins were silent, even Lance looked a little shaken from the sudden turn. Coran dutifully remained at Allura’s side.

And Romelle stood proudly, as if finally she would be given the satisfaction of watching her family’s murderer ruin himself all over again.

The greatest tension aboard the Olkari ship was the truth about the colony Lotor had created. As a group, it was the thing everyone wanted to ask about but also the thing no one wanted to bring up. If it was out of caution because of Lotor or an odd kind of respect for Allura, no one could really say. He hadn’t been able to see it before, not while so weak. He could barely focus on his own personal tension with Allura.

Lotor decided to put everyone out of their misery then and there.

“You want to know about the colony,” he said, simply stating it to everyone as he took his place near Allura and Romelle. All attention was on him, and before he continued, his eyes found Allura’s. “You want to know about the pods. The quintessence. The martyrs.”

“Tell them what you’ve done,” Romelle practically growled, hot fire spitting from her mouth and glaring in her eyes. “Tell them every single detail. You can no longer keep your sinister secrets.”

“Sinister secrets,” Lotor repeated softly, seeming to roll the words around in his brain. “As I’ve already told you, sacrifices were made. Families were split up. I tested Alteans to weed out the strong and capable from the weak and simple-minded. Many of those strong and capable lives were lost when what I expected of them was not enough. I lived long enough to watch generations die out while new ones were born.” He turned to Allura, said right to her, “And I tested those Alteans too when they were of age, and transported them to the second colony when the scans showed me a positive report.”

Allura couldn’t hear it, didn’t _want_ to hear it. She felt she knew Lotor, believed she shared something special with the man she would have been a lot closer to had the war not begun. But with every painful word he spoke now, it seemed Romelle’s accusations were winning once again.

She didn’t want them to win.

Because what would she do now if Romelle was absolutely right?

“And there it is,” Romelle muttered darkly, looking to the Paladins and their paled faces before turning back to Lotor. “No interruptions, no high stress, no convenient kidnapping. You are a siren from the deep, luring innocent prey to their deaths with hope and loyalty in their eyes, sucking them dry until their corpses can no longer supply you. Those Alteans trusted you, loved you, rejoiced when you would return home. And you murdered them all for power.”

“Of course they trusted me,” he said to her, not backing down, not turning away, not even flinching. Not this time. This time he knew exactly what he wanted to say. “You say I tricked them, exploiting that hope and loyalty and turning it into an innocent and commendable ambition to serve me. That is only your imagination running wild. The second colony exists. The facility you found full of pods was not a house of horrors slowly killing my unsuspecting victims. That facility is the only thing keeping those Alteans alive. Brave Alteans who chose to be volunteers… knowing the whole time there was a good chance they would end up in those pods.”

If anyone spoke around him, if anyone suddenly asked him a question, Lotor didn’t acknowledge it. He kept his intense gaze on Romelle as the color was slowly draining out of her face. He watched her swallow, prepared for the fight.

“You’re lying,” she whispered.

“I’m afraid I’m not.” Lotor found Allura, took a moment to carefully study her stunned face, the way her chest slightly heaved. He continued on. “I honestly don’t know how many times I’ve had to tell this team that my main objective has always been to enter the rift, gather the purest of quintessence, and supply it to all worlds. To do that, _once again_ ,” he emphasized, staring at all of them, each and every face around him, “I need ships capable of entering that rift and harvesting that quintessence. Before you, Allura, before the Sincline ships, I had very little. All I had was a theory, a second colony to test it, and an army of the willing to assist me, should they agree. I will not go into the endless nights where we worked our fingers to the bone, or the comforting embraces of my people when I would start to falter, and I will certainly not tell you of the countless regrets and wishes I’ve listened to as my architects and scientists and pilots died while I sat at their bedside, begging them to forgive me.”

Old men telling him to watch over their wives, their children, their grandchildren as they left them to serve the cause to save their race. A young and eager pilot, positivity shining bright in her eyes as she saluted him before testing a ship that would ultimately result in a sudden explosion. A former solider with nothing left to live for grasping at him, mumbling nonsense when quintessence would infect his mind and stop his heart. Lotor had seen it all, year after year, one failure after the next.

And then he’d found Allura. After Oriande, he’d thought, for a small moment in time, that he wouldn’t have to endure such horrors again. That the Alteans would finally be saved.

He had been wrong. The rift was still calling to him, wanting him to come back home.

Romelle’s hands shook at her sides. “You’re lying!”

Keith suddenly stepped forward, his fingers nestled deeply in the fur of the wolf. “Those Alteans weren’t being drained?”

“No. After many test flights attempting to enter the rift in what would be unfit ships because I lacked the resources, the toll it took on the pilots was devastating. A faint withering heartbeat is still a heartbeat, and I wouldn’t allow them to die if there was a chance I could restore them. Keeping them in stasis was our only option to save their lives. To power both colonies and the pods, I had been smuggling quintessence from the Empire, stealing it from Zarkon and giving it to the people he thought he’d exterminated. I have spent deca-phoebs doing what I could to keep my colony a secret from my father and his witch Haggar. Which is why,” he continued softly, finding Allura once again, his eyes softening for her, “I could not tell you about them. Team Voltron was already compromised.”

What feeling should she focus on? Allura wondered as Coran pulled her close. Should she feel incredible joy and pride that Lotor had done what she and her father could not, that her race could be saved from the efforts of a Galra prince? Should she weep tears of happiness that there was a chance and an abundance of hope for them?

Or should she break down right here and right now, collapsing to her knees because now, after the mistakes of the defenders of the universe, it was possible they’d completely ruined everything?

Including her own relationship.

“I don’t believe you,” Romelle hissed, her eyes filling with frustrated tears, falling down her flushed cheeks. “My brother escaped you. He died in my arms. You killed him, and covered it up.”

“Your brother was quick to offer his assistance to our cause once he was debriefed, shortly after he arrived at the second colony. Anyone who does not agree to the more perilous tasks is used somewhere else, somewhere safer to contribute. He was eager and bright and strong, and so I taught him how to pilot. As soon as he started showing signs of infection, symptoms he did _not_ share with me or my medical staff, he very rashly stole a ship and crashed. He died before I could help him.”

“Stop it,” she whispered, covering her face with her hands.

“Communications between the colonies is strictly prohibited. That was the rule that your brother Bandor did not follow, endangering the entire operation and risking all life. Zarkon’s witch has worked endlessly keeping track of me for centuries. Do you know what would have happened had your brother been spotted by the Empire? My colonies would’ve been destroyed right in front of me. _You_ would have been slaughtered and I would have been powerless to save you.”

She was shaking her head from side to side now, her yellow pigtails whipping around her. “Don’t you say his name. He was not a coward.”

“I know all of their names,” Lotor snapped at her. “Each and every one carved into that ridiculous statue. You were so quick to damn me, so eager to _shoot me down_ that you’ve forgotten, _all_ of you have forgotten,” he corrected to the Paladins, to Allura and Coran, “that if it had not been for my intervention, Romelle, your parents would not have been given the chance to conceive you or your brother. Because of me, you do _not_ know of this war. Because of me, you were able to live a very happy life in the sunshine while the rest of us have suffered and sacrificed everything. And the _one_ chance those Alteans have of prospering, of rebuilding Altea again, the Paladins of Voltron are the ones who almost destroyed it.”

Fury pulsed inside him now, one he hadn’t felt in a long time because he’d had a long time to learn control and keep it. No one on this ship would know of the exhaustion and fear he’d felt finding Alteans scattered throughout the universe. No one here, not even Allura, could understand the weight he carried every single day, the weight of thousands of people counting on him to keep them hidden, to stop the extermination. They hadn’t given him a chance before. One girl had swooped him, and made them see Zarkon in him all over again.

He was not in control of his pent up fury now, and he was far from done.

“Did none of you stop to think of the ramifications of abandoning me in the rift? I’m the Emperor of the only race truly capable of ending this war. Would you have left the Galra leaderless had you not decided to return for me? So many bright minds here, and not one thought that it might not be very smart to create a power vacuum within the Empire that controls most of this universe?”

“Lotor,” Allura murmured.

He whipped around to look at her, his angry eyes softening once again at the despair in her own. He took a breath, steadied himself. It didn’t matter, he reminded himself. Lashing out didn’t matter at all. The damage had already been done. “Had you not returned for me, Allura… all would have been lost.”

Lotor was not the only one furious. Romelle seethed, her breath coming out in whooshes and her head feeling light from it. Her brother was an innocent victim, not a fool. Lotor wanted him to be the fool who unknowingly began his own path to ruin. She couldn’t allow that. She felt horrible and dead, she was drowning with no way back to the top for air. Vengeance gripped her chest, her throat. Choked hard until she had no choice but to succumb to it.

She opened her mouth to spit more vile words.

“You should know,” she said to Lotor, her voice full of darkness and the need for revenge. For her brother, she told herself. Bandor could not feel love anymore, so Lotor was undeserving of it too. “You should know that it took your princess an entire quintant to leave for you.”

A trap, Lotor thought, knowing it instantly. This was a trap, but he couldn’t stop his body turning to Romelle again, and listening to her. Allura was a weak spot. It seemed she always had been.

Romelle glared at him. “They were just discussing how to get rid of you, because everyone on this ship is uncomfortable with you here. I know you heard it. You are not as important as you think you are. Allura spent vargas in peace after they battled you. You were not a thought in her head until some damning blast of guilt struck her down. You can’t be that important. Shortly after you were taken back to that witch, she found her source of comfort, being held by and crying all over this one.”

She gestured sharply to Lance, who remained perfectly still. Allura’s eyes widened at the implication. The truth that wasn’t the whole truth at all.

Lotor calmly looked at the boy, at his flustered face, his suddenly tense shoulders. The very strange… need in his eyes. He then found Allura, a desperation in them that he would not think the worst.

But the boy, Lotor thought, studying him again. There was a need there, but there was also a regret, a great one. Regret that he had had his chance, and didn’t properly take it. Though Lotor had never given the young man in the blue armor much thought when he would lash out at him, he realized then that it had been out of jealously. The quick temper, the nervousness, the desperation to be around Allura at all times when he was near her, it all made sense. And the way he looked now paired with Romelle’s words… There were feelings there. The pilot of the Red Lion wanted Allura.

And Allura… had gone to him.

Lotor was not so insecure to give it much of his time.

“That means nothing to me,” he told her, brushing the matter off and showing them all that it didn’t affect him in the least.

“We have to stop this,” Shiro then announced. “We have to move forward with our new information.”

“My head hurts,” Hunk groaned, rubbing at his temples.

“You will do nothing with the information I’ve given you,” Lotor said to Shiro.

“We can help you—”

Lotor simply held up a hand to stop him. “Your team has done enough. I have saved the lives of everyone in this room,” he then told them all. “I have stopped your leader from making an unnecessary sacrifice. I have murdered my own father for you, and I have even saved the lives of your loved ones.”

As she listened, Pidge’s chin fell to her chest when she felt Lotor’s eyes on her. It had been hard to understand at the time, so hard to see what was right and what was foolish. Had it not been for Lotor, she’d had never rescued her father from Zarkon. Had it not been for Lotor, her dad would be dead. They would _all_ be dead.

Her father’s life for Lotor’s. And the prince had instantly made the right choice when she couldn’t, even though she’d sent him straight to his death.

“I apologize for the destruction of the Castle of Lions,” Lotor said to them, and a tightening in his chest eased just a little. “I will never be able to replace the last ship of Altea. Everything I’ve done… It is for the colony. To end the war and bring the Galra to a new way of life. To somehow make a new Altea.” He looked at Shiro, the miracle of Altean magic. Everything he was trying to restore, to save. “I find you blameless,” he said to him.

Shiro didn’t know what to say to that, so he remained quiet.

“But the rest of you want me off of this ship.” The anger was coming back, especially when Romelle sniffed back tears and glared at him. For all he knew, Haggar had found the colony, and ruined everything he’d spent so long saving. All for nothing, he thought. Everything he’d done, everything he’d built, and everyone he’d watched die… It could all be for nothing.

“I will give you that,” he finished grimly, then turned on his heel and walked off the bridge without one glance back.

Allura started forward after him.

“Let him go,” Romelle called to her, rushing forward to take her wrist. She swiped her sleeve under her nose, frowned at Allura. “We were fine without him.”

“You will not give me orders,” Allura muttered, snatching her hand away.

Big pink eyes blinked. “You cannot believe him. Princess Allura, do _not_ be a fool. We have no way of knowing if what he says is true. That _murderer_ has no place here with our kind. You and I and Coran, we _must_ save our people so they do not suffer as my brother did.”

“He is our kind,” Allura snapped at her, the other woman even flinching back. “Emperor Lotor has done more for Altea than I have for ten-thousand years. And I will _not_ hear any more ugly words out of your mouth when you speak of him.”

“You’ve gone mad,” Romelle said softly, backing away from her. “You’ve gone mad, like him.”

“Shiro,” Allura called, keeping her eyes on Romelle as she gave the order. “If Romelle goes anywhere near Lotor’s location on this ship, she is to be tossed into a holding cell.”

“You can’t do that. I came to _warn_ you about him.”

“Yes, Princess,” Shiro answered.

“And if anything happens to him, if he is so much as scratched and points at you, I will toss you off of my ship and leave you to the emptiness of space. _Understood_?”

Allura didn’t wait to hear her answer, didn’t wait to speak with anyone else, as she fled the bridge to chase after Lotor.

She’d left him once, and she would _not_ do it again.

 

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

How many times could one man experience the same thing? How many times had he left a room, knowing he was unwanted by most still in it? Zarkon had cursed him countless times, either undermining him during his exit with a wave of disappointment or watching silently as Lotor had staggered away with blood on his back after a beating from his father’s weathered crop. The Empire itself hadn’t been so different to him. Even as a boy, he’d been pushed out and away, mocked and slandered and constantly told that he could never measure up to the full-bloods. There had never been a place for him, no matter where he went.

There was no place for him here either.

Lotor was furious and irritated and _done_. Team Voltron wanted the power that came with the alliance, but they did not want _him_. They wanted the Emperor who could get things done, clear the path for them, do what they could not, but they wanted that Emperor with his own kind, far, far away from their precious integrity and goodness and _innocence_. They wanted a moment so they could feel peaceful and safe again. They wanted _comfort_ in a distressing time _._

Apparently his presence ruined those _luxuries_ for them.

If he left the ship, Allura could stop feeling so guilty every single time she looked at him. Shiro could stop feeling so useless that he’d not been here to lead and salvage the steadily disintegrating Paladins of Voltron. The boy in blue could stop feeling the crushing hand of jealously and the girl Romelle could find her own place amongst them without her hatred for him making her a fool. The others didn’t have to feel so wary, so uncomfortable, so _unsafe_.

Staring at him like a threat, waiting for him to explode all over again.

_How many times could he feel this?_

He very well might be reaching a limit.

But never, he thought for a moment as he went straight for Allura’s quarters, never had someone followed him.

He could hear her behind him, hear her rushing footsteps, her quick breaths, her desperate need to get to him though he wouldn’t look back or stop for her to catch up. He couldn’t, not when this anger was getting the better of him, not when he knew how justified it was and that her beautiful eyes would make him feel as if he were wrong for feeling it. Allura changed things for him. It seemed she’d changed them in every way he had not originally accounted for.

Lotor _wanted_ to feel this anger, this fury, this odd sense of justice. Anything was better than feeling like a monster who had almost suffered the same fate as the parents he tried so hard not to become. It was better than feeling like an invalid, or a colossal disappointment. A failure as an Emperor.

It was better than sleeping next to Allura every night, knowing things might never be the same between them.

And knowing she felt it too.

So he hung on to the anger, the _unfairness_ of it all. It would be his only defense when she finally reached him. He’d said what he needed to say to Team Voltron, to the Altean girl who might’ve put countless lives at stake with her senselessness.

Privately, Allura had to be next. He couldn’t keep his thoughts and emotions bottled up any longer.

It was destroying him, and he would not continue to ignore this slow death.

He finally reached Allura’s room and stopped in the middle of it, his abrupt and harsh exit from the bridge causing one shoulder to become uncovered from his baggy black clothing. Clothes that could barely fit him now that he was weak and thin and easy to beat because of the rift, because of a great misunderstanding and abandonment. It shouldn’t be like this, he thought grimly, staring at the floor as Allura rushed in at his back. This shouldn’t have happened to him. He shouldn’t be here.

_He shouldn’t be here._

“Lotor,” Allura huffed, closing the doors behind herself. There was an annoyed line between her brows put there by Romelle, but it quickly smoothed out when she looked at him. “Are you all right?”

He only stood still, not turning to look at her, not speaking up to answer her. No movement, no voice. Nothing.

Allura frowned. “I’m so sorry you heard all of that. I wasn’t trying to keep anything from you.” She stopped, thought a bit and winced slightly. No more secrets, no more lies or omissions. “Actually… I was. But not the way you’re inclined to believe. I simply wanted them to tell me of their concerns, if they had any. There was a chance they might not tell me the truth if you were present for such a meeting and I… I just wanted to make things right. With everyone. I wasn’t expecting Romelle to cause such a disturbance. I was planning on speaking with her at a different time, to allow her the curtesy to adjust.” The line came back faintly, irritation sneaking back up on her. Allura sighed softly and crossed her arms over her chest. “I think we might’ve given her more trust than she deserved.”

Trust, Lotor mused. He clenched his fangs, bared them a little out of growing frustration, out of the sudden intense pang in his chest that felt as if any tick his heart would simply stop beating. Trust he had to earn as a prisoner and an doomed exchange in war because of his blood and race. Trust Romelle had been hastily given after supposedly confirming already lingering suspicions about him. Everything he’d been feeling the very moment he’d come to in the rift, everything he’d been ignoring for the sake of his love for Allura, rushed into him then.

His heart was broken, Lotor realized. It had never been whole, not really. His bloody, broken heart.

_How could he escape this pain?_

The answer came to him swiftly.

The silence was deafening and he still wasn’t moving, wasn’t even acknowledging her. Allura studied his back, ran a hand down the long thick locks of her silver hair resting against her spine.

“Lotor, say something,” she murmured, unable to linger in silence any longer. It was killing her. “Please talk to me.”

After a moment, he straightened up, composed himself. Already he was making the necessary plans in his head. “I will need our coordinates,” he said softly, his voice formal, commanding. An Emperor. “Dayak will send a ship. I expect to return to Central Command in under twelve vargas.”

Absently, she nodded. Her mind was working as well, preparing. “I’ll let Shiro and Coran know we’ll be departing soon. Blue shouldn’t take up too much space, if you could accommodate her. That way if they need me—”

“You’re mistaken, Allura,” Lotor interrupted. “I will be returning to the Empire alone.”

She blinked at his back. “No, I… I want to go with you. I’ve told them. I’m not leaving you, they will be fine without me. I will even leave the Blue Lion here.”

Finally he moved, turning slowly to face her, to look into her eyes. He could fight them now. So much else was roaring inside him like an inferno and he was unable to smother the flames. “No,” he told her, and that one simple word crashed into her. He watched it happen before his eyes. “You won’t be coming with me. You will remain here, on your ship. I will return to my people.”

Allura automatically shook her head. “I won’t allow it. Who will protect you, Lotor? You’re still recovering. You’re still…”

He held her gaze, emotionless. “Still what?” he asked, though they both knew what she was going to say.

Still weak. Still frail. Unfit for the Galra who still questioned his leadership.

But she stood firm. When it came to this, she couldn’t budge. She couldn’t let someone else make her decisions for her. That was how this mess began in the first place, and she would not stand by and let it happen again.

She gathered herself, planted her feet, and gently asked, “Is this about Lance? About… what Romelle told you concerning him?”

_Shortly after you were taken back to that witch, she found her source of comfort, being held by and crying all over this one._

Perhaps it was selfish of her, but if Allura could go back to that meeting, she wished she could erase those words before all others. Lotor couldn’t believe the image that had popped into everyone’s minds and Allura couldn’t dwell on the fact that she had took a moment of comfort from Lance.

Surely Lotor wouldn’t assume the worst?

But his sudden scoff didn’t ease her worries either.

“Oh please, Allura,” Lotor muttered, his blue eyes flashing. “I am not so _possessive_ of you that I would keep you from the arms of another man. You may be with whoever you wish.”

His condescending tone brought her brows together, a response she hadn’t been expecting from him. “Is that how you really feel?”

“Were you honestly expecting me to lash out at him, attack him? Claim you as mine right in front of him? I am not an _adolescent boy_ who will throw a tantrum every time the object of my affections ignores me in favor of someone else. If that is who you desire, Princess, then by all means, take him. I will not stop you.”

He was angry, of course she could see it in his eyes, hear it in his voice. Trying to be understanding, Allura took a moment to calm her own bubbling anger. “There is nothing but friendship between me and Lance. You may not care to hear it, but I’m telling you anyway. And I don’t understand why you won’t allow me to come with you. It is foolish for you to go alone.”

A brow arched up. “Am I a fool, then?”

“Right now you are most certainly acting like one, yes. You _know_ it’s a risk, Lotor.”

He gave a shake of his head. “I’m going back alone.”

“Why?” she demanded sharply.

“Because I am not safe here.”

She stared at him. Of all answers, she hadn’t been expecting that one. Dread was creeping up on her now. Why she was feeling it, she had yet to figure out. It only grew when he continued.

“I am not safe here,” he repeated, and he looked almost relieved to say it. As if it had been dwelling within him for ages. “Not with you, not with the others. Not with Team Voltron. I never have been. I must make myself safe.”

Not safe, Allura echoed, mulling over the word and all that it meant. Lotor didn’t feel safe with her, with any of them. He felt _unsafe_. How could he say such things? The ship that housed Voltron was the safest ship in space. “Not safe?” she asked him, finding the knowledge hard to move past. “How could you not feel _safe_?”

Lotor turned his head away then, enough to keep the fury down, though she could feel it brewing inside him like boiling water. His body was tense, his claws fisted at his sides. Allura studied him closely, paired his obvious irritation with what had happened in the meeting. It had worked in his favor, she tried to reason. His name was clear, the entire team knew the truth about the colony, Romelle had been silenced. Whatever problems awaited them, they could conquer them together.

She wanted them to be together.

Not safe, she thought again. There was only one reason why he wouldn’t feel safe here.

“Is this…” she began, swallowing some before she continued. “Is this about the rift?”

His eyes snapped back to hers, his shortened hair whipping around his face. “The rift,” he echoed softly, darkly. Then he glared at her. “You think this is only about the rift? Look at me, Allura!”

She flinched, not out of fear, but out of the raw emotion in his face, in his eyes. In the way he touched the baggy black top he wore as if it were all the evidence he needed. The intensity wafted over to her and made her shudder.

“I’m not the same,” he said to her, voice raised, eyes wide and desperate for her to see too, to understand it all. “I look nothing like myself. I’m weak and scarred, and you insist on watching over me like a child. I have these marks,” he murmured, his fingertips drifting over the purple white under his eyes, then they found his hair and the shorter length of it. His long locks that had been ripped from his scalp during overexposure. “Nothing is the same. I am completely different. I’ve been changed. Since the day I got involved with Voltron, everything about me has been altered. What’s next? What will I have to endure next? I… I can’t take it anymore.”

Too much, too much to keep track of. She tried to, desperately. Did his new marks worry him because the Galra hadn’t even accepted him _without_ the traits of his mother’s people? Did he believe Voltron to be the culprits who’d handed him all his pain?

She couldn’t think about that particular thought.

“So you’ll leave?” she asked, shaking her head at him. “You will grow stronger, Lotor. You will recover. Whatever it is worrying you, I’m here to help you, I promise.”

“I can’t be here. I shouldn’t be here. I’m not safe.”

“How could you say that?” she asked desperately. She didn’t want to hear it, couldn’t hear it. She felt the anger now as it seeped into her eyes, welled up like tears, settled on her shoulders. “Keeping you safe is why we’ve been drifting in space all this time. We have an alliance with both the Empire and the Coalition and we have been in limited contact with both so that _you_ can recover. My people _have_ been watching over you like a child because you are unable to defend yourself. You are _not_ fit to command the Galra in your current state and we have done everything we can to make this ship your home.”

“My _home_?” he questioned loudly, taking on the anger he could see in her without backing down. Power against power. “Those people out there want me gone. Or is that not what your secret meeting was about?”

“You have to have some understanding on where they’re coming from,” she argued.

“Here is something for _you_ to understand, Allura. Each and every person on this ship has called for my death on more than one occasion. Would you like to take a moment to defend those actions? Would you like to offer me an _excuse_?” At his side, his fisted claws began to tremble. Another sign of his weakened body as he recounted the acts of the proclaimed defenders. “I surrendered myself to Voltron peacefully. I gave you vital information to put you _steps_ ahead of the Empire and its tyranny. And how do you and your _people_ repay me? You chain me up and use me as a bargain for a man I tried to _return to you_. You presented me on silver to Zarkon, indifferent to what he would do to me, your greatest ally. What would you have done if he’d killed me right before their eyes?”

Too much had happened in so little time. Romelle’s accusations, the forming of the Sincline ship, the rift, Lotor’s return and recovery. It had all happened so fast, had taken countless emotions and inner strength to get through it all without giving up or screaming into the void. Those central moments had snatched up her entire being, blurring all that had come before them.

Like their exchange with Zarkon.

It had ultimately worked in their favor, but the cruelty of it remained like a bad dream.

“What would you have done if Zarkon had shoved me to my knees, and cut my throat in front of your precious paladins? That was the fate in store for me, Allura. And he would have done so with relief and joy, the same emotions he felt when he would rip open the skin of my back, and when he fought to kill me after _your people_ left me all alone when they were aware of his lies that I tried to warn you about. Are _those_ the people you want me to offer my _understanding_ to? Because they are so _discomforted_ by my presence after the rift? My life means _nothing_ here!”

“Stop it!” Allura shouted, her breath wavering, her chin trembling. She couldn’t take it anymore, and in that vulnerability, defense was called, and called angrily. “We have been punished for those mistakes.”

“You have only been rewarded, time after time,” he argued with a glower.

“Did your life mean nothing to me when I returned to the rift for you? When I put my own life and my team’s trust at stake to get you back? To heal you? You were a dangerous man in a dangerous place, Lotor. I fought it _and_ you for your life, for your sanity. I could have died in the effort to get you back. I wanted you back, I needed you, this entire universe _needs you_. How _dare_ you say that you mean nothing to me.”

“Did you really want me back?” Lotor asked, holding her gaze, locking her in place with furious blue eyes. A tight grasp. “Or was it simply your desire to get rid of your own guilt for abandoning me?”

_You should know that it took your princess an entire quintant to leave for you_.

Romelle’s words, again. Romelle’s words that had started this tragedy, that had cursed all of them and brought them to where they were now. Lotor had known it as a trap, able to see it as if the Altean girl had illuminated it like a bright light, showing him deception while also trying to ensnare him.

But her words stuck with him, in him. As if Romelle had thrown a dagger, and impaled it right into his chest. With his next question, a sad and defeated tone in his voice, he unknowingly did the same to the princess.

“Do you even care about me, Allura?”

She could feel the blade in her chest, through her bones, piercing her organs. She felt the coldness of it in her flesh, wondered if she was actually bleeding all over the floor and if he could see it himself.

Allura, frozen before, finally breathed out, “What?”

He was quiet for a moment before he spoke again. “I’ve been uselessly lying on this ship, in your bed, waiting for you to ask me about the colony. All of my plans were destroyed because of it, _so much_ was ruined because of it. And even lying here next to you in the dark… you said not a word. None of them, save only for the woman who sought vengeance, questioned me about the colony. But you, Allura… It seemed you’d forgotten about it. I wondered why, until I realized… you still believed her.”

He’d waited. Lotor had listened to her toss and turn next to him at night, had watched her armor up and had felt the softness of her kiss, wondering if today would be the day she would ask for an explanation. But the days had passed, and Lotor had almost longed for her to bring it up, had felt a great need for her to come to him so she could understand what had happened to her people, _their_ people. At least then he would know she yearned for the truth instead of misunderstanding. He had the means to give her peace, but she hadn’t asked him for it. He’d waited patiently.

But her request had never come until Romelle had demanded the truth from him.

Why? Lotor knew why, and it was the reason for his broken heart.

Allura only stared at him.

“You didn’t ask me about the colony because you feared the answer I would give you. You didn’t want to hear that I had done unspeakable things, so you have been distracting yourself with the task of tending to me, offering me your bed with the hope that we could reclaim the closeness we once had and just… forget. Move on. You kiss me, and there is always this lingering thought in the back of your mind that I very well might be a monster. I can feel it.”

His eyes lowered from hers, and even hearing it himself brought revelation. They’d never spoken about the rift or the colony after his rescue, not in the way they should have. She wouldn’t talk to him because she wanted them to forget all the offenses, to go back to the way things were. And he wouldn’t talk to her because he’d known that when he finally did, he would discover that there was no way he and Allura could make it. They’d tried to prolong it, had truly tried to forget. But they couldn’t even be intimate with each other without the nightmare returning to haunt them.

She didn’t want it to be true, just as she hadn’t wanted Romelle’s accusations to be true. She didn’t want this unresolved tension between them to exist, but it did exist, it had settled in the air around them and had been suffocating them until this very moment. And because she felt like she was suffocating, she opened her mouth to gasp for air to breathe.

 What came out was rage, and a great need to defend.

“You certainly weren’t quick to offer me an explanation for the colony, were you, Lotor? Was this how you decided to punish me, then? I hand you over to Zarkon, I leave you in the rift, and you will allow me to suffer by withholding the fate of my people from me? By standing right where you are now and listing all of my mistakes? I apologized to you, and you forgave me!” she yelled, uncaring if the others would hear her or not. Ancients help them if someone knocked on her door now.

“You only apologized to me when I was suffering in the rift,” he reminded her. “When I was not in my right mind.”

“And whose fault was that? Who caused the rift?”

“I did!” he roared, and neither backed down from the other. Power versus power, he remembered. Heartbreak against heartbreak, rage for rage. Agony for agony. “And I must accept it. However long I have left, I will live knowing that I became my parents, if only for a moment. All these centuries of _trying_ not to create some twisted generational curse, and I succumbed so easily when I thought you despised me. I built my own coffin, and it was the same one my parents built for themselves. So it appears you were right, Allura,” he murmured, his eyes hard as they stared into hers. “I am just like Zarkon.”

It hurt them both to hear it. His greatest fear and her greatest regret. Never could either of them go back to change what had been said and done, whether it was right before the rift, or before even that. Before the war, before Altea’s destruction, before his birth. If they could stop a comet landing on Daibazaal that would lead to the creation of Voltron, perhaps they would if it would end the pain felt here and now. A great fear. A great regret.

And it could never go away. It could never be forgotten.

No matter how far either of them ran from it.

As devastation filled in her eyes, Allura finally accepted it, accepted everything. She’d tried to run for more time with him, but it had been a useless act and an inevitable destination. How could they go on when she had exploited his greatest fear? How could they sleep next to each other when he would forever be a reminder of all she’d lost and regretted?

They couldn’t continue, and the knowledge made her grieve.

Made her want to scream.

“We are never going to get passed this,” she said to him softly, her mournful eyes finding his, and seeing much of the same. “Are we?”

It felt like a death, and he knew what dying was like. His mother’s heart had stopped while he’d still been in the womb. Everything around him was darkening with the end. “I suppose we’re not,” he answered.

What had Shiro called it? What was the earthling term? Breaking up, is what Shiro had said, Lotor remembered. Ending the romantic and intimate relationship before marriage. No longer calling himself Allura’s _boy friend_. They were… breaking up.

_It felt like a death._

Allura knew it too, and her grieving eyes filled with tears. Even now, even during this horrible moment, she wouldn’t let them fall. She kept her chin up, tried blinking them away. At her feet, she could practically see her crushed heart on the floor, mangled by their failure and their words and revelations. Utterly destroyed by his belief that he did not feel safe with her, that he did not want her to leave the ship with him.

That no matter how hard she tried to soothe his pain, she could not convince him that she loved him more than anything. She had no strength to bend down and pick her bloody heart up from the floor to try to repair it. She’d given it to him, and he didn’t want it.

Perhaps it was rightfully so.

Still in defense mode because she didn’t know what else to do, she kept her chin held up high and a furrow etched deep in her brow. Lotor only suffered as the nightmarish whispers from the space between realities came to haunt him again.

_How many times do we have to kill you to keep you forever, Lotor?_

At least once more.

His exhausted and shadowed eyes glanced over at Allura’s bed. Another area in their relationship where they’d failed, and the last place he would touch her.

“I will find other accommodations for tonight,” he said quietly.

Her scoff came automatically, a quick response for a woman who didn’t know whether to cry or yell or scream or even laugh at their foolish wishes. “Save it, Lotor,” she snipped at him. “I won’t kick a recuperating man out of the bed I’ve offered him. I hope you find rest on your last night cycle aboard my ship, your highness.”

He only frowned and looked away.

“Good night,” she rasped, her voice heavy with emotion as she spun around, storming from her own bedroom with Lotor left still inside. She couldn’t look at him now, at someone she loved but had treated so terribly. He would never forgive her and she would never ask for that forgiveness again because it would just be wasted breath. To look at him now would be to fall apart and never return from it. She couldn’t even tell him how she felt. All this time wandering space with him but a simple reach away, and she couldn’t tell him.

As the doors shut behind her and her foot lifted to flee for solitude, Allura spotted the last person she needed to see.

“Allura, are you okay?” Lance asked softly, cautiously. Of course the entire ship had heard her and Lotor screaming at each other. There was sadness in his eyes as he reached for her. “What did he do?”

She couldn’t do it. She didn’t want to talk to any of them, to hear their voices or see their faces. On all of them, all she could see were their incredible sins not fit for a defender or a paladin.

She desperately needed to be alone.

“Not now, Lance,” she said sharply, and breezed passed him and his reaching hand without looking back.

Was there an earthling term for how she felt right now? Allura wondered as she fled down the halls of her ship.

She could feel nothing but agony tearing her apart, piece by piece.

 

* * *

 

 

The night cycle began, and as those on the ship prepared for rest, Allura claimed the lounge as her temporary bed. There was a padded bench for her to sleep on, pillows here and there to make her more comfortable as she settled in after turning off the lights. Everyone had heard her and Lotor arguing, and being wise, they had decided to give her space and time before offering comfort later. Allura was thankful for the peace and quiet, though she was still buzzing in emotion. She was certain she would absolutely lose all composure if she happened upon Romelle and any trace of smugness she might sense from the girl.

What she _had_ sensed as everyone headed off for their rooms was Coran’s constant peeking in on her. She didn’t want to speak to him or feel his loyal embrace because there would never be a time when Coran would not take her side. She wanted reason, some sense, some true justice. After what she knew would be a restless night of sleep, she wanted to be told the truth. Sometimes the truth was tough to hear.

But… she’d already heard it, she realized. Lotor had told her and her team exactly what their actions had caused, what they _would have_ instigated.

As she fought for sleep with the hope of feeling nothing at all, Allura ignored Shiro when he entered the lounge and when he silently draped a blanket over her before leaving her to her solitude once more.

How could he say those things to her? Allura wondered, wishing she’d thought to grab her nightgown before storming out of her quarters so she didn’t have to sleep in her tight flight suit, tossing and turning. How could Lotor think she didn’t care about him? They were the ones who initiated his return to the Empire in the first place when they made Zarkon unfit to lead. They brought him to the Kral Zera where he would win his crown, to Oriande where he would experience the culmination of centuries of research. They had retrieved the comet that would lead to the creation of the Sincline ships and _she_ was the reason he was alive now.

As she forced her eyes shut, begging to drift off to sleep, Allura hung on to that anger, a deep furrow in her brow and her mouth set in a sneer and her arms even crossed over her chest over the blanket.

She settled into that anger, held it close like a lifeline. Better for her to be angry with him than herself.

A varga in the dark went by, and sleep had not come for her.

It felt like torture when the anger started to drift away, and that reason and tough truth came calling for her earlier than she was ready for it.

Zarkon had abused Lotor since the day he’d been born, had beaten him since childhood, had viciously exiled him from the only home he’d known, and Voltron’s actions made him return when the Empire had called for its Prince. They had fought him on the Kral Zera, on Oriande, places that had ultimately served them well and physically and emotionally battered Lotor in return. His great ships were left to rust and fall apart in the rift because they had destroyed it, and she may be the reason he’d survived the quintessence field, but she was also the reason why he’d been trapped there in the first place.

_Do you even care about me, Allura?_

Laying out all the evidence before herself, it seemed to tell her there was no way she could truly care about him at all.

Allura let out a sad sigh, covered her eyes with a hand when the sting of tears returned.

The Empire, Oriande, the Sincline ships. It had all been for the Alteans, for the people she had thought she’d been fighting for when she cursed him before the rift would claim him. She was her people’s Princess, and yet a half-Galran Prince had been the one to save her race while she had done nothing but ruin plan after plan.

Now… Lotor had nothing to save them. Because of her.

_The evidence showed that she didn’t care about him at all._

But her heart ached for him.

Her love for him and her actions conflicted with each other. That couldn’t be the combination that ensured a lasting romantic relationship, and the truth of it slapped her in the face. Lotor was right to feel the way he did. He was right to believe she didn’t care about him, that he was not safe with Voltron and never had been. _Everything about me has been altered_ was what he’d said to her.

One disaster after the next, and it was all her fault. As she fell into a depression, a terrible self-loathing that she could not fight, Allura simply laid on the bench, her blank eyes staring off into the darkness while the sounds of her ship hummed underneath her and time ticked on until the others would wake.

And Lotor would leave her for good.

A soft light in the halls outside the lounge blinked on behind the bench. Allura made no move to see who it was; the lounge was closer to the cabins than the kitchens and Pidge tended to get thirsty during the night. Her dry, tired eyes flicked towards the shadow on the wall, of whoever it was standing in the doorway. She waited silently and patiently for them to leave so she could fall into the dark again, and suffer in her nagging thoughts on how Lotor’s departure would unfold in the morning.

How she would survive it, and how it was the right thing for him to do.

How many times would she get to win him only to lose him again and again?

The shadow on the wall still wasn’t moving. She didn’t even hear whispers if it was more than one body out there. Growing a little annoyed, she willed them to go away, to leave her alone so she could wallow in privacy. The shadow then moved, but instead of grabbing a water and leaving, the visitor made their way closer to the bench. Allura turned her head to see who it was that was now bothering her.

The last person she expected to see wandering the dark halls of her ship in the middle of the night.

He still wore the baggy black clothing and his hair was mussed, as if he’d tossed and turned in her bed, as she had on the padded bench. His blue eyes were still shadowed, his new visible markings still proud underneath them, and full of a despair that matched her own. In the darkness of the lounge, they simply stared at each other. She watched his chest rise with a big breath, his eyes changing from despair to incredible longing.

And then Lotor was moving towards her, arms reaching. Stunned and yet somehow content, Allura remained compliant and silent as he scooped her up, adjusting her so he could crawl onto the bench and under the blanket with her, cradling her in his arms like a baby. She kept her eyes on his as he did so, her hands automatically resting on his shoulders, his face hovering over hers and his embrace locked firmly around her.

Seeing him, feeling him, like this… It completely overwhelmed her. As she stared up at him, Allura’s wide eyes became shiny, and fingers now curling around the cloth of his black shirt.

And then she began to cry.

The tears came swiftly and this time she could not keep them at bay. All the tears she’d held in since grabbing Lotor from the rift, all the sobs she’d stopped in her throat as he’d healed, as he moved further and further away from her, took hold and she was completely unable to run from it. She thought it pride that had kept her from releasing her true emotions, but it had been nothing but denial and fear. She didn’t care how she looked, how she sounded. She fell apart, and crumbled in his arms.

“I’m sorry,” she wept, grasping at the shirt of his shoulders as if she could keep him right where he was forever. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen, I was only trying to do what was right. I hurt you, Lotor, but I- I promise I didn’t mean it. Not truly.”

He was quiet as he watched her cry, as he held her while she sobbed. He only let her speak.

And, she realized, they were words she should’ve said a long time ago.

“You were right,” she cried, her eyes already going red. “I was afraid, I was so afraid that what Romelle said was true. I didn’t give you a chance and I can never forgive myself for choosing her over you, for going to Lance when I shouldn’t have, for saying you are just like your father. You’re not. You’re _not_ ,” she breathed, tugging some on his shirt. “I am. I’m just like Zarkon. I hurt you, like he did. I almost killed you, like how he tried to. I rejected you because of your blood and I was the one, Lotor, who made you suffer like your parents. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I tried to go back, I tried to make you forget all that I had done to you, and then maybe I would forget too.”

Her breath hitched and her nose sniffled as she cried. Tears ran over her temples and into her hair, but Lotor still slowly reached up and thumbed a few of them away as she continued on.

“I don’t deserve your trust or your affection, but I must tell you now… You _must_ know that as long as I am able, I will make sure that you are safe and secure. Even if that means you don’t stand by my side. You must know that since the day I met you, I have been unable to stop thinking of you. You must know that these marks on your face,” she whispered to him, her hand finding his cheek and her thumb swiping gently over a purple white Altean mark, “are not why I want you now. I wanted you before I knew you were Altean. And you must know, Lotor, that I will forever regret what happened to you, but I will never regret how we once felt. I will never stop thinking of you, I will never stop trying to help you. You are more Altean than I have ever been. You are their true defender, not me. And what I said to you in the rift… I was not lying.”

Her chin trembled as another wave of tears streamed down her face, as the words she couldn’t say all this time came so very easily now that she would lose him.

“I love you,” she wept, placing both hands on his cheeks, staring deeply into his eyes so he would know her words to be true. “I _love_ you, Lotor. So much. I always have, I always will. And I don’t deserve you.”

This was everything, he thought as he watched her sob. This was everything he’d been waiting to hear from her, and more. These were words he’d been desperate for, words he never thought he’d be given even before he’d met her. Sacred words, magical words. Words that brought him peace, ones that cleansed and healed. It was more raw and moving than when they’d been in the rift, when they’d fought and screamed and cried together.

Lotor studied her face, her crying eyes, her weeping mouth, her flushed cheeks. He felt the damp locks of her hair where the tears had fallen and asked one soft question. “Would you truly leave Voltron for me?”

Her answer was instant. “Yes. Yes, Lotor, I would.”

This was… _everything_.

And she couldn’t be the only one to offer that everything in the palm of her hands.

“Allura,” he murmured, and as his heart beat wildly in his chest, he realized something was happening inside him too. It was easy to fall apart in madness, easy to yell and blame and lash out in anger. This was different. “Allura.”

And suddenly he was crying with her. Ten-thousand years of sorrow built up inside him, and finally, without madness corrupting him, he could release it.

It was freeing. Now he could be free.

“Oh, Lotor, don’t cry,” she whispered to him. “Don’t cry because of me.”

“I’m sorry too,” he told her, his own tears falling down her hands that held his face. “I tried to hurt you. I kept things from you, I used you in the beginning. Keeping the colony from you was killing me but I swear I would’ve told you when the time was right. It never came, and now we’re here. Allura… I shouldn’t have said those things to you earlier.”

She shook her head. “I needed to hear it. You needed to say it.”

“Allura,” he whispered, pulling her in closer. “My feelings for you are true.”

He’d said it once, and she had too. Each time had been in the midst of heartbreak, and it had almost ruined them. Words spoken in misery. He reclaimed them now. 

_Being in love means doing one miserable thing after the next._

Maybe they had needed that misery, Lotor thought as he once again heard Shiro’s voice in his head. If anyone understood turning sorrow into strength, it was him. Perhaps Allura had needed him to grow stronger and wiser. Perhaps he’d needed her to feel as if all the hard work and hard decisions had been worth the lonely ten-thousand year fight.

_But the thing about that kind of misery is that you’re happy to do it. Every single day, and you know the one you love is feeling it right alongside you._

_But when it comes to you, Lotor… I think you’re taking on the wrong kind of misery._

No more, no more of the wrong. Only the right.

“Allura,” he said again, and he watched her eyes brighten a little bit more every time he spoke her name. “I have always been in love with you. There is no way I could have kept from falling for you. Once again, I was powerless to stop it.”

It didn’t feel miserable at all.

His tears dripped from his chin and onto the chest of her flight suit, but it hardly mattered to her. She still didn’t believe she deserved him, but maybe one day she would. Finally she smiled up at him, and she could feel the unbroken beat of her heart inside herself again.

This was more healing than the magic of Oriande.

“I give you my crown, Lotor,” she whispered to him, rubbing his white hair back from his face. “The Alteans are yours, not mine. You saved their lives, you kept them safe. You are their champion Prince. I will follow you and support you for the rest of my life.”

_For the rest of her life_. She would offer him her crown, leave her Lion, risk her sanity and soul to return for him. And for the first time… he could feel safe and sound.

“That is nonsense, Princess. You will continue to fly your Lion, and serve the universe as a great defender and royal. We will lead our people together, Altean and Galra both. You and me.”

“You and me,” she whispered back, then pulled him down to kiss him. Suddenly she couldn’t get enough. “Please don’t leave tomorrow,” she murmured against his mouth.

“No. No, I couldn’t leave you. I never even contacted Dayak.”

“I love you, Lotor,” she breathed as she kissed him, their eyes still swollen and exhausted, but soon it would pass. “I love you, I love you.”

With no more energy left to move, the two soon fell asleep on the bench together, her arms holding him close and his cheek resting on her chest. Safe and sound.

And healed.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter (I think) to go. Thank you for your comments <3


	6. Chapter 6

The rest of the team found them cuddled up in the bench the next morning when they all arrived in the lounge for breakfast. Hunk and Pidge awkwardly backed out of the room, Keith couldn’t seem to care less and dropped himself into a nearby seat with a green drink and a snack for his wolf. Coran dashed right to Allura’s bathing chambers to start a bath for her.

And Lance just stared at them.

It was hard for him to know where Lotor slept after his time in the infirmary. It was also hard to know that, unless she was in Blue, Allura was constantly by his side wherever the Emperor may have been on the Olkari ship. And because it was hard, Lance rarely sought her out unless he thought it necessary.

It was so much harder to actually _see_ them like this with his own eyes.

Because now… it was very real.

_Just a boy from Cuba. Not a space prince like Lotor._

There was no chance for him now.

Allura didn’t notice Lance flee the lounge as she tried smoothing down her messy hair and then reaching down to scoop up her mice who were demanding her attention.

But Lotor did. And it was something he might have to address at a different date. Not now, he decided as he helped Allura up so that she could make her bath. Not when things were still a little too fresh and certainly not when he and Allura had finally made amends with each other.

The boy had a lot of thinking of his own to do.

Days passed, and Lotor continued to heal, fix his broken empire, and finally accept his visible Altean markings. As his second in command, Dayak managed to put together a small council of trustworthy Galra to aide her with the everyday duties until their Emperor returned. There were gatherings of the council every morning that Lotor joined via vid comm so that he could still make the decisions for his people with his people until he joined them in the flesh as strong as he’d once been.

And with his issues with Allura no longer keeping him down emotionally, Lotor grew stronger every day. His hair was even growing back at a rapid pace thanks to his Galran genetics.

One of the times during the day cycle he greatly enjoyed was spending it with a certain member of Team Voltron who aided them with nourishment, and one who had taken an almost instant liking to the Emperor because of his cool and calm spirit.

With his back resting against her little shelter, Lotor stroked the top of Kaltenecker’s head that sat in his lap.

The simulation room where they kept the cow gave her bright blue skies and lush green grass. There were flowers growing within the green, though Lotor could not smell any of the flora or feel the heat of a sun above, but simply being surrounded by such glorious color was enough to keep them both content. In more of Shiro’s borrowed clothing that he was steadily filling out again as his strength returned, Lotor smiled as he watched the cow’s eyes roll back some in bliss when he rubbed a certain beloved spot near her ear.

“You are a large earthling,” he said to her, being reminded of her great weight when she moved a bit. Even merely her head in his lap was impressively heavy. “I wonder why humans became the dominant species on your planet.”

The cow breathed out a great sigh.

“I see. Their brains. They think far too much and assume their ways are best. It would be interesting to know what Earth would be like had your kind taken charge.”

Allura had been delighted to introduce Lotor to their cow, Kaltenecker. Bringing Hunk along, the princess had explained that the big animal supplied them with milk, and it allowed Hunk to make them many different foods, like milkshakes.

“She is a very important member of our team,” Allura had explained to him proudly. “We would not be the same without her.”

Lotor was no expert in earthlings nor their planet and, misunderstanding, the Emperor had bowed to the cow and politely said, “It is a pleasure to meet you, madam.”

Allura’s eyes had gleamed as she laughed in delight. Hunk had shaken his head with an awkward grin and muttered under his breath, “Aliens.” Afterward, he’d set a chair next to Kaltenecker, sat after placing a bucket underneath her, and reached for her utter.

Hunk then squeaked when Lotor suddenly snatched his wrist in a mighty grip, sending the yellow paladin a very calm, though very frightening expression.

“That is inappropriate,” Lotor had told him with great warning. “You did not ask for her permission. This creature is a lady, and you will not disrespect her in such a way in my presence.”

“Uh, Allura…?”

Lotor learned many things about Earth that day. Cows were animals meant to be milked, the action did not hurt them, and it was not considered sexual in any way. He commended Kaltenecker for her contribution to the team, but still he refused to drink any of her milk.

“I am not Kaltenecker’s child, Allura,” he’d explained once again when his princess tried to offer him her milkshake to at least _try_ it. It had taken her a moment to get used to the idea, and so could he. But he wouldn’t budge from his stance. “This milk is not meant for me.”

She’d only sighed in frustration and slurped the whole thing down herself.

The Galra Emperor may not have wanted to drink an earthling cow’s milk, but that didn’t stop him from sitting with her in the simulation of a bright and sunny day.

“If you are not happy when you finally return to Earth,” Lotor said to Kaltenecker as he scratched her head lightly with his claws, “then you must signal me somehow. I will come for you.”

Her eyes found his and seemed to soften in kindness. Like she knew exactly what he was saying to her.

Lotor looked around at their pretty surroundings. The land seemed to go on for miles, but in reality, the room was only so big. “This must be Altea,” he murmured, eyes landing on a nearby juniberry flower. Its magenta petals were beautiful against the green of the grass. “You know,” he continued to the cow, “the Ancients believed that all life began from a single juniberry flower. That this entire big and magical world came from something so small and fragile and… alone.”

He reached out with the hand not petting the cow. His fingertips could feel the softness of the juniberry’s petals, but he would never be able to smell their fragrance or taste the sweetness of the berry. Small and fragile and alone, he mused. Like him. Like how he’d once been.

“But then that one flower was not alone,” he added, drifting his hand over the cluster of other flowers growing next to it. Like Alteans would eventually, they covered the planet in great numbers. “I suppose we just have to wait until the time is right, and then create a whole world with help.”

The right time, the right help. It was starting to become obvious to him that he could not tend to his colony of Alteans without both of those things. He could not help them thrive and continue to keep them safe on his own. One single flower needed to become a million and coat the planet in magic and life.

“I never got to see Altea,” he said softly, his eyes glancing out at the fields and mountains beyond that weren’t truly there. “But I cannot mourn the past and linger in the sadness of it. I must find a suitable and safe way to merge the Empire and the colony so that I may serve them both. We can thrive together. My father and Alfor could not do it but… perhaps Allura and I can.”

Kaltenecker let out a long _moo_.

Lotor smiled at her and patted her side. “Do you like that idea, my lady?” She answered in a deep breath exhaled through her nose. “So do I. If you would prefer my colony to your Earth, I promise I would give you real fields like these. Deep space seems to suit you.”

He stayed with the cow a while longer, and the peacefulness of sitting with such an animal relaxed and somehow energized him at the same time. Before he left, Lotor refilled her tub with fresh clean water. A thought came to him, and before he backed away, he leaned over to catch his reflection in the surface. After the terror in the rift, his reflection always gave him an image of his corrupted self, glowing eyes and marks on his face cutting down his cheeks, poisoning him. Reminding him of where he’d come from, and where he’d died in the womb. It was just another torture to see what he’d become for a brief moment in time.

His reflection in the cow’s water showed him only his regular face with his now visible Altean markings. Whatever had been torturing him for so long was becoming unable to do so. It seemed the whispers of the space between realities were losing their grip on their _Prince of the Rift._

Good. He deserved a bit of peace.

As she chewed on some hay, Lotor set his hands under Kaltenecker’s chin and bent to place his forehead over hers in farewell. He would come visit her tomorrow. In his less baggy human clothes and his hair long enough now to be pulled back in a short ponytail, he made his way down the ship’s halls. There would be more missives from Dayak for him to answer, and soon it would be time to join Allura for bed. As he passed the training deck, he peeked inside when he saw the lights on. Perhaps it was Keith and Shiro sparring again, or Allura training with her whip.

It was the boy, Lotor discovered.

It was Lance, sitting on the edge of the training deck with his red Bayard in hand.

And he looked awfully miserable.

In the days since the truth had been told about the colony, the tensions between Lotor and Team Voltron had been lessening. He and Allura could finally move passed their issues, his body could properly heal without so much emotional turmoil holding him back, and Romelle had been silenced and confined mostly to her quarters so that she could accept the true fate of her brother. Everyone seemed to be moving on and making peace with the current situation.

Everyone except for this boy.

The boy was not his concern, Lotor thought as he studied Lance from the doorway, watching the way the Bayard changed from its original form to a broadsword again and again in his hand. The red paladin had never been kind to him because of his unrequited feelings for Allura, and since he’d seen her and Lotor wake up together in the lounge after a very emotional day, he had been quiet and sad and distant from his team. Whatever the boy was going through, it was not Lotor’s place to interfere. Making the decision, Lotor turned his gaze away and took a few steps.

And then he stopped. Thought some more.

Sighed.

Being quiet and sad and distant wasn’t good for someone who was anything but those things.

Preparing for any outcome, Lotor breezed into the room. He noticed the boy didn’t flinch or glare or move away when he dropped onto the training deck next to him, but the Bayard stopped transforming, and then it was silent.

It didn’t last long, and Lotor knew it wouldn’t when he watched that sad and defeated face go defensive with an irritated quirk of his brow.

“Here to gloat?” Lance asked him, keeping his eyes away from Lotor’s probing ones.

“Gloat?”

“Yeah, gloat,” he snipped. “You got everything you wanted, didn’t you? You win and I lose. So go ahead already.”

Lotor lifted one white brow. “Why do you think so poorly of me?”

“I don’t know, maybe because I have a good reason to? You just swaggered your way onto our team after you tricked us over and over again, even pushed us into a different reality to get what you wanted and now you’re here and everyone trusts you and you’re…” Lance frowned, then turned his head away some more so Lotor wouldn’t see. “You win. You got the girl. Allura is yours.”

Lotor let him linger in those words for a few ticks. “Those words offend me.”

“Offend you?” Lance asked with a sudden glare as his head whipped in the Emperor’s direction. The frown was gone now. “They’re the words every guy wants to hear. They’re the words guys like you hear all the time. Tall, good looking, bad boy type like yourself.”

“And now I am even more offended,” Lotor told him, keeping his expression neutral but his words honest, and a bit hard. “Are you honestly that insecure? That shallow? You are damning me for traits that are out of my control and you are objectifying Allura in my presence.”

Lance winced a bit. “I’m not objectifying her.”

“Yes, you are,” Lotor snapped at him, and the sudden rise in his voice echoed in the training deck. “And from what I’ve seen of you, she is not the only one to be given such a disservice.”

He gave a few blinks. Squeezed the handle of his Bayard in his hand. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, man. I never know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t you?” Lotor questioned. “I’ve seen your actions with my own two eyes. I’ve seen the vids; I’ve studied all the moving parts of your team quite extensively. Do not insult me _again_ by pretending to be ignorant.”

“Look, I don’t know what Allura has told you about me but—”

“Stop.” His voice went loud again, echoed again with that one word. The commanding voice of an Emperor. “Allura has told me nothing of your flirtatious nature. In fact, she has been generous to you and has gone out of her way to preserve your reputation in my eyes. And this is how you thank her for her generosity? You ask me to gloat because I’ve won her affections when you could not? She is a _person_ ; she is _not_ a medal you pin to your jacket.”

“I know that!”

Lotor gave a shake of his head. “I’m not sure you do, boy.”

Lance narrowed his eyes and muttered, “Don’t call me boy.”

“Why shouldn’t I? That is exactly what you are. You are a boy pretending to be a man. Who taught you these ways? Who is your father?”

“Who’s yours?” Lance yelled.

Utter silence again, because now Lotor didn’t know what to say as he stared down at this young man, whose eyes were big and full of countless emotions and whose shoulders were slumped over in defeat and whose very presence gave off a certain air. A need to be seen, to be loved. To be secure in his own skin because the shadows of others were constantly encompassing him.

_Who’s yours?_ he’d said. _Who is your father?_

Lotor’s father was a man who taught him nothing except all the ways in which he could not count on him. A man who took from him, beat him, and tried to kill him.

_Lance loves his family_ Allura had once told him. _He can’t wait to see them again._

He really was a boy, Lotor thought as he watched Lance sharply turn away from him, stare at his shoes. He was a boy who could not learn from his father because he was not with him. Or anyone who was capable of teaching him what it meant to be a man. At least, no one he truly wanted to learn from.

Lotor put his hands on his thighs. The boy wasn’t stomping off or swinging that broadsword at him. Perhaps this was a good thing. Perhaps.

“Well,” Lotor said softly after a few moments in silence. “My father is certainly no one to admire, is he?”

With his head bowed and his legs stretched out, Lance stared down at the red Bayard in his hand. Since Lotor had been brought back from the rift, he’d felt angry, sad, alone. Cold. When they’d left him behind in the quintessence field, there had been a part of Lance that had been happy for it. _Finally_ , he’d thought at the time, because wasn’t that okay to think after Lotor had gone crazy and tried to kill them all? Finally, he could thrive again.

But he wasn’t thriving at all. He was… lingering. Lingering somewhere he probably shouldn’t be.

Feeling a terrible happiness like abandoning someone in a dangerous place after a great misunderstanding was not very heroic or impressive or desirable at all. And yet he was still holding this Bayard, the tool of a Voltron paladin.

And yet… the man he’d been happy to finally be rid of was the only one on the ship sitting next to him now.

Maybe it was time to thrive, and not linger in the cold.

“What you said about me,” Lance suddenly muttered, keeping his gaze on the Bayard in his hand. “I act that way because I feel like I have to.” There was more to that, he knew. Might as well stop acting like a jerk and finish it. “Because… I’m not like you.”

The boy wouldn’t look at him but Lotor would look at the boy. He watched him carefully, in fact. “Like me?” he asked.

_Razzle dazzle_. One corner of Lance’s mouth slightly turned up in a half grin as he breathed out a quick laugh. “Tall, good looking, bad boy type like yourself.” Lance could feel the disapproving scowl at the description again without even looking at the Emperor. “Fine, you don’t like that. God.”

“Where do these feelings for Allura come from?” Lotor asked him. “Why are you so drawn to her romantically?”

Lance gave a shrug. “I feel like I’m… somebody around her. I don’t feel like the runner-up who only got into school because the better option dropped out. I don’t feel like I have to sit at the kids table. I feel like people know my name when I’m around her.” Because of Allura, the universe knew him. He got to hold the Bayard, he got to fly the Blue and Red Lion. He was the right hand. It was the best feeling in the world. “I feel like I’m a better person when I’m with her.” He frowned sadly again. “I feel like… it should be Lance and Allura. Not Lotor and Allura. Just being honest,” he mumbled sadly.

Lotor could see the boy gripping the Bayard like a lifeline in his hand. And maybe it was exactly that. “That all sounds very selfish.”

For that, he was sent a quick glare. Lotor only continued, unfazed.

“It seems to me these feelings come from the possibilities of what she can do for you, or how she makes you feel about yourself. You said she makes you feel like a better person. Why is it Allura who determines whether or not you are a good person? Why is the prospect of having her cling to your arm the key to your success and fame?”

Lance went quiet, still clenching the Bayard. Lotor waited patiently until the boy finally uttered, “She’s…”

“A princess,” Lotor finished for him. “For you, she is the prize. She makes you feel these things about yourself, and she even gives you the confidence to offer your affections to any woman you find appealing enough. If these feelings were true, you would have the decency to devote yourself completely to her, and her alone. If these feelings of yours were true, boy,” he continued, waiting until Lance finally looked up at him, “you would put her first always, and let her go when she’s made her choice. As any noble man would.”

Lance only stared at him. It all seemed to flash before his eyes. The constant praise of Allura’s skills, the confidence that she could be even greater, the assurance that she would be without a single doubt. The admiration not for her beauty or title, but for her strength and abilities and intelligence. He wasn’t the one to give Allura any of that.

It was Lotor. Lotor said those things to her and it was Lotor Allura had chosen. Not Lance and Allura. _Lotor and Allura._

It had nothing to do with titles or beauty or riches. Allura had made her choice based on none of those things. With Lotor, it had always been about _her_.

Lotor could see it all connecting in the boy’s eyes. There would be time for him to learn, he knew, but at least he could offer some guidance in the right direction.

“Allura is not a prize to be won, by neither you nor me. No woman is,” Lotor told him, holding his gaze. “They should be valued and admired. The way a woman thinks alone is simply… fascinating and instrumental, and her courage is boundless. They survive in ways that you and I will never know or understand, and they should never be used as a tool to better a man. The greatest people I’ve ever known in ten-thousand years have all been women, and I will not stand by and allow them to be objectified and used. Allura should not be the one to make you feel like a hero, red paladin.”

He watched Lance swallow, but finally his tight and controlling grip on the Bayard released.

“That job is yours. A single woman does not determine a man’s worth, that is not her destiny. If you need a reason to be a hero or a better person, then do it for the innocent people around you simply because they need you. Because protecting them must be done.”

_It must be done_. Not for fame or fortune or respect. Lance had let go of glory once when it came to leading Voltron and piloting the Black Lion, but he’d refused to let go of the hope that he could at least win the princess’s heart. That he could trade in leadership for beautiful love.

But Allura’s love was not his to win. It wasn’t his at all.

“Stop being the boy pretending to be a man,” Lotor told him firmly. This time, Lance took it all in. “Let Allura go and become a man, Lance of Cuba.”

In Lance’s hand, the Bayard transformed into the Altean broadsword. He hadn’t even willed it to do so. Staring down at it, he felt the weight of the weapon in both hands now.

“It still makes me sad,” he said to Lotor. “I still feel like I want her.”

“Don’t you earthlings say _time heals all wounds_?”

Lance gave a very faint grin. “That sounds like something Shiro would say.”

“I heard it from him. He is a very wise man. It is a natural thing to feel sadness when love is not returned, but I believe you will get through it because you don’t seem like the type to stay stuck in sadness. You will move on and learn from this experience. You must.”

Learn, Lance mused. He had to learn so he didn’t feel like this ever again, and maybe next time romance would work out for him. “You’re not gonna beat me up or tell me to stay away from her?”

“I am above such things as petty jealousy or possession over my partner because Allura does not belong to me, though I will step in to protect her if it does not end. You will be these things too once you mature. There must be a reason why you hold King Alfor’s sword in your hands.”

He lifted up the weapon, showing it off proudly. “It’s pretty cool, huh?”

“Do you even know how to use it?”

“Well…” Lance lightly scoffed. “I was training a bit until you barged in.”

Lotor wouldn’t comment on the boy being hunched over in misery when he’d entered the training deck, and stared at the sword with great admiration instead, locking it all away in his head to think about later. He then considered the time, his own strength, the boy’s, and made a decision. An exciting one.

“Would you like me to show you how to properly wield it?”

Lance went suddenly still and quiet. He looked at him, then at the sword, him again. Conflicted, as if Lotor’s offer may not be a genuine one and perhaps an attempt to continue making him look like a fool.

Lance eventually said, “Sure. I guess.”

Lotor gave a nod, then lifted himself from the deck to find a weapon of his own to teach with. But before he could wander off too far, he heard the boy continue behind his back.

“I’m sorry about… everything,” Lance muttered. Lotor was respectful enough not to turn around. “And your Oriande poem didn’t suck.”

Lotor only grinned a bit. If he was going to show this boy some swordsmanship, then he needed to stretch first. He could use a good spar session.

 

* * *

 

 

It was later than he’d intended when Lotor finally entered Allura’s quarters. His time with an earthling cow had turned into sword training with an earthling boy, but she hadn’t minded his absence and had already started her preparations for bedtime. As soon as the doors closed behind him, he pulled off his human shirt and found her standing in front of her floor length mirror in her pink nightgown and blue robe. She had her silver hair over her shoulder, contently combing it out with a golden brush.

Allura sent him a smile in the reflection of the mirror. “I take it you had a good day?”

“I did.” He smoothed his own hair back, messy from training. “It felt wonderful to move around instead of minding every step. I don’t feel so stiff and weak.”

“I hope you didn’t overexert yourself, Lotor.”

“I feel better than I have in a very long time, Allura. No need to fuss over me.”

She playfully scrunched her nose up at him in the mirror as he made his way into the bathing chambers to shower before he would climb into bed with her. The shirt was tossed into the laundry chute, and before he gave his pants to it too, he stared at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. Still the same, no haunting face grinning back at him and calling him back to the rift. Just his face and his Altean marks under his blue eyes that were now less shadowed. Lotor pulled the band from his hair, shook out his white locks. He realized then his mind was only half with him. The other half was occupied with something else.

With the shower momentarily forgotten, Lotor quietly leaned out of the doorway of the bathing chambers to look at Allura again.

With a relaxed grin on her face and her eyes closed in what looked like serenity, she somehow still looked incredibly beautiful doing something so mundane like brushing her glorious hair. He could smell her clean scent from the doorway as he watched her, and it slithered its way right into his brain as his eyes traveled over the length of her body and the curves he knew were under the robe and nightgown. He remembered the shape of her body when she’d opened her black flight suit the one time they’d actually tried having sex.

In the days since their big standoff, Allura had not tried to sleep with him again. Not since the big failure in her bed when he hadn’t been able to go through with it. She still kissed him and held him, but she had taken a step back from anything further to give him time. However long he needed, it would be his, and she would wait patiently.

But as he watched her brush her hair… Lotor wondered if time was something he didn’t need anymore.

It felt wonderful to move around, he’d told her. Now, he wanted to keep moving around with Allura. Hopefully it would go better this time, and certain parts of him would work as they should and not remain unresponsive like last time.

Allura’s eyes caught his in the mirror as she watched him approach her from behind. Something was different about them, she thought as she set the brush aside, something gleaming in the yellowblue that paired well with the purple white markings on his face and body. She hadn’t seen that gleam since well before the catastrophe with Romelle and the rift. In fact, she’d seen it in his eyes right before he’d kissed her for the first time after their trip to the quintessence field.

It gave her such a great burst of hope and longing that she spun around to meet him when he got close enough.

His eyes and that gleam traveled over her face, the pretty brown skin of her neck and collar, and her lips that were already parted for a kiss. The gleam pulsed and seemed to be copied and linked with the one in her own eyes.

“I feel something,” he murmured to her, his fingertips finding the lightning bolt shaped mark under his eye. “What is it?”

Along with hope and longing, she felt gratitude and relief. “I told you our marks are sensitive to touch and can be used as pleasure points when intimate with another. When two Alteans want each other, that sensitivity can link up. It is like… an enticing appeal they feel at the same time. The link can make them glow,” she whispered, her lids lowering when he now reached for her pink ones on her face, swiping his thumb over it and making her sigh. “You feel it.”

“I do,” he told her, lifting his other hand for her other marking, and caressing her cheeks. “I’m sorry I didn’t feel it before.”

“Lotor,” she said softly, grasping his forearms and rubbing her face into his hands. “I would have waited a thousand deca-phoebs for you to feel the way you do now.”

Thank the Ancients it wouldn’t take that long. Lotor leaned down to her, as he had the first time he’d kissed her by the Sincline ships, and as he had in this very same spot when she’d asked him to before their first attempt in bed. But this time felt different. When his mouth found hers, he could feel the genuine excitement and great desire to be with her that he had not felt before when he’d been suffering and trying to give her something he’d realized he couldn’t. But now he could. When he opened his mouth against hers to taste her tongue, he felt like he could beg for it.

Allura reached for her blue robe, but Lotor gently eased her hands away. He would be the one to undress her this time, and not just lie there motionless while she tried to pleasure him. Her eyes closed and she grinned lazily when he kissed her face and down her slender neck, his fingers sliding through her robe and shrugging it off of her shoulders before it pooled to the floor at her feet. Her pink nightgown underneath was sleeveless, and he felt the shiver in her skin when his tongue found her earlobe just as the tips of his claws grazed over the marks along her upper arms. They felt warm to the touch.

It thrilled her, and Allura suddenly wrapped her arms around him to pull him closer, her mouth fusing with his in a desperate kiss and her hands trailing over the bare skin of his upper body, even over the scarring on his back put there by a brutal touch. He still felt warm from his earlier training, and the muscles underneath were harder and more pronounced than they were the last time she’d touched him. She gasped against his mouth when one big arm encircled her waist, when the other pushed its way under the skirt of her nightgown to reach for the panties under it and yank them down her legs. A big grin spread over her face.

“You’re naughty,” she said with a husky laugh, exhaling deeply when his fangs sunk into her bottom lip.

“Perhaps a little bit, yes.”

“I like it,” Allura told him, trying not to melt from this new side of him she hadn’t been able to unlock before in her bed. It was already worth the wait, especially when he hoisted her up, pushing at her skirt when she wrapped her legs around his waist. “I love it. I love you.”

“My sweet princess,” he growled at her as he walked to the bed and crawled on his knees up to her pillows before laying her down on them. With her eyes sparkling up at him, Lotor took her nightgown and pulled it over her head. The pink marks all along her naked body were almost calling to his own, linking them up in every way. Her skin, the swirls of pink, her breasts, everything about her lovely and enticing. When he fingered one mark along her stomach, she moaned softly. “This seems to be working quite well, my love.”

“I wonder if something else is working,” she questioned innocently. Her hand shoved its way into his baggy pants. Surely he wouldn’t be flaccid like last time. “Oh,” she breathed, her fingers wrapping around his length. Her Emperor was anything but _soft_ in his pants now. “Oh my. You’re…” _Big. And hard. And big._

“Allura,” he groaned, as he shimmied out of his pants so he could be as naked as she was. Her hand remained grasping his cock. “I must tell you something. About last time.”

The evidence that he wanted her was pulsing in her hand, so she was pretty sure he wouldn’t tell her to stop again. She pouted as she lightly pumped him in her fist. “I want to focus on _this_ time.”

“Please,” he whispered, gently taking her wrist and stopping her movements, though they were divine. She nodded, leaning back on the pillows to stare at him. Looking like a goddess, he thought, and he could barely concentrate. Lotor gathered himself before he continued. “Last time, I had to stop it for many reasons. One of them being that… I have never trusted a partner enough to allow them to be on top of me. I cannot handle the stress of it. It becomes too much, feeling their weight pinning me down.”

“Oh,” she murmured, and the more she thought about it, the more it made sense. At the time, he had not felt truly safe with her. During all those years under Zarkon and then as an exile, of course he would feel far too vulnerable. One of the first things she’d done before was ease him onto his back and keep him there, though her actions had been innocent. His need to please her had kept him from speaking up in a tense time. “I understand. We can work up to that. You can have me like this. However you want.”

“Allura,” he said again, staring into her eyes. “There is a way I want to have you.”

And before she could ask, she felt him gather her up, and reverse their positions with a simple and graceful flip.

Staring down at him now with her thighs straddling him, Allura watched him smile up at her.

“I trust you,” he said, running his hands up her thighs and then taking her hips. “I love you.”

Even as aroused she was and sitting atop of the man she’d wanted for so long, Allura couldn’t stop her eyes filling with thankful tears. Since she’d pulled him from the rift, she had been working endlessly to make him know that he was safe and loved and wanted. It hadn’t been completely true, but she had strived to make it so. She’d promised him she would never stop trying to help him, that she would always keep him safe from here on out. That she would be for him the person he’d never had.

Perhaps it was a silly thing to feel so emotional from something so simple as this particular declaration of his, but to Allura, it felt like she’d finally done a good job when it came to her prince turned emperor.

_Finally._ She’d done a good job.

Lotor sat up, keeping her in his lap as his hands slid up her spine under her silver hair. “May I ease inside you, Princess?”

The sound of his voice and the way his hand moved to the front of her body to palm one of her breasts made her forget her tears. She was wet, she was ready, she’d been waiting for this moment, and no longer could she spare one more second. Allura reached behind herself for his cock, lined him up and sunk down on him slowly.

Their markings gave a pulse of light at the same time.

“Allura,” he breathed, already trembling as he pulled her closer. He tilted his hips up for more of her warmth and wetness, and almost without realizing it, rubbed his cheek over her shoulder to stimulate the mark there. “I feel it. I feel it.”

She grinned and smoothed his hair. These Altean sensations were new for him, so she encouraged more pleasure when her hands drifted over his body, stroking as many of his marks as she could reach and watching the way it pleased him. He moaned into her neck when she added movement to her hips, and after a deep kiss, returned onto his back so he could watch her ride him.

If this was a position he would never allow before, then Allura would make it extra pleasurable for him now. It had been a long time – ten-thousand years really – since she’d been with anyone, but the stretch his cock was giving her was welcomed and the slightly forgotten movements were quickly remembered. Lotor was a fast learner as well and sought out her own pink markings with his claws or the press of a finger. It gave her intense pleasure as she bounced on him, long locks of hair clinging to her perspiring skin before being moved away so Lotor could cup her breasts. When Alteans were linked in a such a way, she could come quite quickly.

“Lotor,” she moaned.

He kept his eyes on hers, keeping one hand on her breast as the other moved up her chest, her neck. Any second now he would come, but he would wait for her, as she’d waited for him and this moment. Her hands grasped at him, squeezed when his fingers continued moving up; over her chin and to the sweet destination she craved.

“You’re glowing,” he panted at her.

And when he touched the pink mark on her face, both hers and his lit up together when they came together.

Crying out, she leaned over him, shuddered as their glow pulsed behind her eyelids, and finally collapsed on top of him.

 

* * *

 

 

 

_You’re glowing._

They illuminated the Princess’s quarters more than once that night, even in her bathing chambers when Lotor still wanted to shower and Allura followed him in. As she panted with her naked chest pressed against the dripping shower wall and his big hand still between her legs, Allura - dazed and sated - had mentioned that they should’ve been doing this the whole time. She’d quickly realized that it hadn’t been the best thing to say since Lotor had not been ready, but he’d only laughed breathlessly behind her at her stunned expression and kissed her shoulder as the glow of their marks slowly waned.

Soon it was time to return to the Empire.

Dayak welcomed him back, staring for a while at the new marks on her Emperor’s face she could now see in the flesh, and gave him a rueful smile before gently setting her hand on his cheek and patting it some.

“Come, Emperor Lotor,” she’d told him. “Your people are anxious to see their great leader who survived the rift twice.”

Soon it would be time to return to the colony. But this time, he would bring peace to the Galra and the Alteans. With his plans and resources and Allura’s power, they would be able to access the quintessence field again and give both people an unlimited source of energy that would no longer be taken by bloodshed.

And today… it was finally time to leave the Olkari ship.

With his strength returned and his safety no longer a pressing issue, Lotor could finally deal with the Fires of Purification and Haggar should he ever locate her or Sendak. He could command his people, work with Voltron, and keep another intergalactic work from happening again and slaughtering innocents. They were even slowly getting into contact with Earth, the human paladin’s home planet.

Kaltenecker would stay with him, and eventually be given a proper home at the colony. He would compensate the humans well for the cow. Deep space really did suit her.

But before he would leave the Olkari ship to permanently return to the Empire, he would need to dress properly and look like their Emperor who survived the rift twice.

Lotor felt like himself in his usual armor and his own colors. The blue and orange were familiar and the star shape on his chest reminded him of the universe he once swore to defend against Zarkon, at any reasonable cost. It was a relieving thing to him to fill it out again with his regained strength. Not the Prince of the Rift, he thought as he studied his appearance in the mirror of Allura’s quarters.

The Emperor of the Galra Empire and defender of New Altea.

Since before his parents had entered the rift that turned them, those titles had been his destiny.

“You’re looking good.”

The doors had been open, and in its threshold stood Shiro with his arms crossed and a smile on his scarred face. His Olkari-made arm was still functioning properly, though Lotor had mentioned he could improve on it if Shiro wished.

“Thank you,” Lotor said.

“I guess you were right when you said we wouldn’t match for long,” Shiro commented, touching his own short white hair. Lotor’s was almost the length it had once been before Shiro had cut off the shredded locks.

“I’m usually right about most things. So are you.”

“Me?” Shiro asked, placing a hand on his chest as he came to stand next to Lotor. “How so?”

“The day you assisted me with my hair and my wounds. You mentioned that I was unfortunately taking on the wrong kind of misery. The same kind, I figured at the time, that tore you and your Adam apart.”

Shiro’s white brows lifted. He knew Lotor was an exceptional listener, but he hadn’t thought at the time that he’d take anything a simple soldier would have to say seriously. Especially not in the weak and injured condition he’d been in. “Oh. I guess that means you figured some things out. You and Allura. There doesn’t seem to be nearly as much tension as before.”

“I’m very… happy,” Lotor said, and the realization felt freeing. Finally, he could be happy. “The way I feel about her,” he continued as he eyed his armor in the mirror. The new colors of the new Empire. “It is crippling. But not as it was before. It is a miserable thing to constantly worry for her safety or wonder if she is also happy and fulfilling her potential. For her to incessantly be on my mind.”

“One miserable thing after the next,” Shiro added, his own words coming back to him.

“Exactly,” Lotor murmured. “And something that I cannot live without. It is yet another weakness I can turn into a great strength.”

“I’ve never known anyone else who does it better.”

Lotor turned to him. Shiro was a tad shorter in height and they were completely different species, but there were many things they had in common. Time with Zarkon had almost beat them and time fighting in the Pits had almost killed them. They had both been used by the witch and scarred by the Empire. They also carried the great weight of others on their shoulders when perhaps they didn’t have to. They were used to conquering the unconquerable.

They both deserved happiness and stability.  

“If you decide to make a home on Earth again, then I hope your people offer you paradise. And if your wish is to reconnect with the man of your past, then I hope your Adam gives you another chance.” Lotor held out his hand to him. Another hope of his was that Shiro’s planet would treat him as the miracle of Altean magic Lotor knew him to be. “Thank you for helping me and giving me support when I needed it, though I was nothing but a stranger and a potential enemy of Voltron to you. I will always appreciate your kindness and your service to all worlds, Takashi Shirogane.”

Shiro had heard the words and other variations of them before, but coming from someone like Lotor made him truly believe them and swallow back some great emotion. He grasped Lotor’s arm at the elbow – the alien handshake – and replied, “You never have to thank me for anything.”

Lotor smiled at him. “If you feel your place is within the stars, I will always have a position available for you.”

“Guess I have something to think about when this is all over, then. You know,” he added, still holding onto Lotor’s arm. “On Earth we hug a lot. So while we’re having a moment, I’d like to ask permission to hug the Emperor.”

A hug, Lotor contemplated. Yes, he’d seen the earthlings hold each other quite a few times while living on this ship with them, especially Shiro and the young boy Keith. They were very vulnerable embraces. Ones Lotor had only felt from those extremely close to him. Embraces that were rare in his long lifetime.

“I will allow it,” Lotor said softly.

Shiro didn’t waste time. He quickly and gently pulled Lotor in. It took a few moments for him to feel the slightly hesitant hold of Lotor’s long arms around him, but the hesitancy soon became something more relaxed.

Things wouldn’t be the same without an Emperor on the ship with them.

“You are our Champion,” Lotor murmured to him. “You always will be.”

_Champion._ Shiro didn’t hear that name much these days, but it seemed Lotor would never forget it. They pulled away, and before Shiro left, he turned back and said, “Oh, Allura asked me to tell you to meet her in Blue’s hangar when you were finished dressing.”

“Thank you.”

“Emperor Lotor,” Shiro said with a grin, then left.

The hangar for the Blue Lion was exactly where he found Allura. She wore her pink and white flight suit, her hair down instead of pulled up. When he approached her, she was glancing up at Blue intensely as if she were communicating with the great machine, but didn’t jump at all when he softly placed a hand on her shoulder. She sent him a beautiful smile.

“You are very quiet when you move, my Emperor.”

“I didn’t startle you.”

“No. She told me you were there.”

Lotor looked up at the Lion. It was the closest he’d ever been to the right leg of Voltron. “So the bond is true.”

“Yes,” Allura said. The Black Lion would suit him, she thought with interest. Perhaps one day in the future, when the next generation of paladins would be needed. It would be the only time he would follow in Zarkon’s footsteps. “I can hear her. She knows when I need her and she can hear me, as well. She feels what I feel.”

“Amazing,” he whispered, and he didn’t know why he did it, but Lotor lifted his hand up as he stared into the eyes of the Lion.

Allura watched as Blue leaned down, and a very small part of her mouth touched his hand.

His marks gleamed with a soft pulse of light.

The mark of the chosen, she remembered. No matter what happened to him, he would always be chosen. She had chosen him too.

“I asked you down here for a reason, Lotor,” Allura began, and suddenly she was oddly nervous. She had rehearsed it all morning in her head and was confident in her decision, but having him stand in front of her now was a bit nerve-wracking. She pushed it all back. “You will be leaving us today.”

“We will be in constant contact, Allura. You are always welcome to come with me, but my people need their leader. The Empire is your home as much as mine now.”

“My home,” she repeated softly, and Lotor didn’t miss the very slight frown on her face and the longing in her eyes for a home she didn’t have anymore. It quickly vanished. “I think I will come with you. I think, if it would please you,” she continued, turning to face him as they stood in front of Blue, “we could anchor my ship to yours. Voltron and the Galra can finally be allied, permanently.”

“It is done,” he told her instantly. “I’ve grown quite used to sleeping next to you.”

Her eyes gleamed as she smiled up at him. “I wish to align myself to you in all ways.”

Lotor watched her bite her lip.

Then his eyes widened when she sank onto her knees before him.

Allura took a big breath, craned up head up at him. Determined now, she reached out for one of his hands hanging at his side, and held it in both of hers delicately.

“Emperor Lotor,” she began reverently. She’d rehearsed it. She was confident. She could do this because it was what she wanted, what she’d chosen when she had gone back for him in the rift when she realized she couldn’t live without him. “Will you marry me?”

Lotor only stared at her in silence.

She held in the urge to wince. “I know I’m not much of a princess anymore and I know I still don’t deserve you. I never will. No one will. But even if you decline my proposal, I will always be with you. And I will always love you.”

It was quiet and he was still. Too quiet and too still, and for a moment she really thought he would tell her no. Giving her his heart was one thing, but marriage was something else entirely. The surviving Alteans didn’t know her, and Altea as she’d known it was gone. The Empire had fallen into a reign of tyranny and war when the last Emperor had married outside their race. Lotor might assume his people would not accept their official bonding.

At least he would know she wanted to marry him if he declined. At least he would always know that her feelings were true.

But then… Lotor smiled down at her.

Her heart leapt in her chest.

“Oh, Allura,” he said to her. “My princess. Of course I will.”

“You will?” she asked excitedly.

“Yes. Oh yes.” He yanked her up to her feet, pulled her close into a deep kiss. Her arms wrapped around his neck and she laughed against his mouth when he dipped her. “If only the men our fathers used to be could see their children now.”

“A royal alliance,” she said, keeping herself close when he set her back on her feet. “Coran is going to burst into tears.”

“Dayak will want us to marry as soon as possible.”

Allura gave a rueful grin. “That might be difficult. We must find and apprehend Sendak. Priorities.”

“Priorities,” he repeated, but she could tell his mind was moving in a whirlwind. “I have entire fleets on the hunt for Sendak. He will not get far.”

“Haggar then. She is far more dangerous.”

“The Blade of Marmora has taken that task, to honor their own killed by her Druid. She has not been seen since she vanished from my ship.” Lotor took her face and swiped his thumb over her pink marking. “Priorities, Allura. I will return to the colony. And I will take you with me.”

Her eyes widened, and her heart gave another great leap. “But… but how?” she asked him, and the longing he’d heard in her voice earlier when she’d mentioned her home returned and blossomed in her face. “Keith said the journey is dangerous and long.”

“I have traveled to the quantum abyss and protected the colony for generations, my love. Do you not think I have the technology to get there in a much safer and faster manner?”

Of course it wouldn’t take him two years, she thought. Of course he had all the answers to everything. Allura smiled big and bright and her eyes filled. “Do you mean it? We can really go see the other Alteans?”

“I will take you to your people, Allura,” he told her. “You are their princess. They must know their princess.”

Overcome now, she held him close as her shiny tears spilled onto his shoulder. She would ask him a thousand times to marry her if she could, if only to let him know that she would always want to, again and again and again. Besides Coran, there was no one else in this universe who could understand her. She could share her culture with someone who appreciated it and who could claim it as well, and she could do the same with the other half of him. He was two worlds coming together and creating something beautiful. He was everything she’d waited for while she’d been fast asleep for ten-thousand years.

She didn’t have to keep sleeping and he didn’t have to keep fighting and suffering on his own. Now they could rule together, and serve their people. Altean and Galra both, Lotor had said before.

_You and me._

Allura suddenly pulled away, wiped at her face. “There is one more thing, while we’re down here.”

“It certainly won’t top you proposing to me,” he said teasingly, watching as she bent nearby for something. Allura lifted what looked to be a carrier of sorts. With a giddy grin, she opened the hatch. Waited. When nothing happened and she seemed to grow a tad frustrated, Lotor gave a breathless laugh. He was just about to offer his assistance when she tapped on the carrier. A shadow then sauntered out of it. A black creature.

Not black, Lotor realized as his slight grin fell and his eyes stared. At least, not black everywhere. Bright colors here and there. His royal colors he’d first enjoyed within the black.

“Kova,” Lotor said softly.

The cat, recognizing the voice, glanced over at Lotor. His tail swished, and instead of leaping away, he sat when Lotor approached him. Their eyes locked and his hand automatically lifted to pet at the familiar fur.

Lotor had mourned for the creature when he’d realized after Zarkon’s attack that no one had grabbed him. It had been a tense moment, a life or death moment, and he’d assumed the cat had perished. But here he was, perfectly alive, and already purring under Lotor’s palm.

Remembering himself, he looked up at Allura.

“We were patrolling a sector in the Lions and spotted a wreckage yesterday morning. We didn’t know it was the ruins of your old ship, and Hunk spotted him on some floating debris. We recognized him from our past encounters with your Generals.” Allura watched Lotor run his hand over the cat’s ear. She kept her hands behind her back. “He doesn’t seem to like most people. He even took a swipe at Pidge, and screamed the whole flight back here. But as soon as we landed on the Olkari ship, he stopped crying. I think… he knew you were here too.” The two just seemed to look at each other, as if communicating the way she could with Blue or her mice. The mice, she then thought with slight worry, then had to shrug it off. They would deal with that problem if it became one. “His name is Kova?”

Lotor finally glanced back over the Allura. Kova continued to simply stare at him. “Yes. He has been with me for as long as I can remember. We’ve never been separated… until recently.” And, Lotor thought as he smiled at the purring cat, Kova still pleased him. “I found him when I was a boy. I’m quite certain he used to be my mother’s… He’s never hurt me. Not once.”

“That is a very long time for a cat to live,” Allura commented.

“His quintessence signature is similar to mine. We’re the same.” With one hand on the cat, the other reached out for Allura. She could see how much this simple reunion meant to her intended. “Thank you, Allura.”

Kova jumped onto his shoulders, rubbed his cheek on Lotor’s hair and purred as the Emperor pulled the princess against him.

You and me, she thought again as she leaned against his chest. Forever.

It wasn’t long until Lotor had everything in order to travel to the quantum abyss. He readied a ship that would take them all to the colony without danger and in a sufficient amount of time, and handed the tech over to the green and yellow paladins so that they could do the same for the Lions. Blue would follow without her paladin. Allura thought she should be with the man she would soon marry when she was finally reunited with her people, and Lotor with the Alteans he’d rescued from extermination.

Her stomach flipped and her hands shook a little. Coran gave her a comforting embrace, as nervous and equally excited as she was, and practically skipped onto the imperial flagship waiting for them. The Lions took off for space, Romelle in Black with Keith and a distant look in her eyes when she finally accepted that she would have to pick up the pieces of her life without living in blame and hatred.

With her hair pulled up and her pink armor secured, Allura found Lotor waiting for her so that they could board and begin the jump to the quantum abyss.

Her new home. Her new life.

Priorities, she thought again as she walked up to Lotor. And the first one would forever be him.

The purple white markings under his eyes shined with a smile as he held his hand out to her. “Are you ready?” he asked her.

They had done what their fathers could not. Somewhere, Allura was sure the good men they both used to be were pleased with them.

“Here we go,” she said, and grasped his hand.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading and commenting! Come visit me at my tumblr, and I hope you enjoyed Heaven Queen.

**Author's Note:**

> Maybe leave a gal a comment? More to come soon. 
> 
>  
> 
> [My Tumblr](http://mermaider00.tumblr.com/)


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